The number of Russians ready to pay more for organic food products has recently soared by 20 percent. It is, however, impossible to say how many such products are sold in the country, which is only now getting accustomed to healthy foods. According to some estimates, only about 5 percent of Russians, or 7 million people, would prefer to buy only organic food. The share of such people in Europe is 32 percent, and in the United States it's 42 percent. At the same time, Russia's 5 percent may triple within the next few years as the population becomes more prosperous.
According to the company Comcon, the organic foods market is one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy, increasing by an average of 15 percent to 20 percent a year. The share of such products on the European food market is 3 percent, and businesses that supply organic foods take in almost $30 billion annually. The share of organic foods in the United States is a little lower, around 2 percent, while companies there take in half what European ones do.
Organic products remain the only underdeveloped segment of Russian retail. Russia does not have a lot of land plots that produce organic food. The area used for the cultivation of such products is just 57,000 hectares, according to the Russian Grain Union, which is less than 0.1 percent of all agricultural land. Sometimes these plots are used, not to produce organic food for the domestic market, but to export pre-packaged food to Europe.
The reason is obvious: Russian law does not have a clear definition of organic food. But domestic demand for reliable and healthy products is increasing. Until recently, Russia did not have a single store that positioned itself as selling only organic foods. Now Moscow has two. Of course, this is a drop in the ocean for a megalopolis of 15 million people. By contrast Berlin, with a population of 2 million, has over 350 organic food stores.
This, however, does not mean that most Russians are willing to eat just any food products. The fact is that neither consumers nor producers in Russia understand what, exactly, the moniker "organic food" implies. Just a few years ago some producers tried to promote their products by claiming that they were organic, without providing any additional information.
Then a new standard was introduced in Russia, which prohibited the marketing of foods as organic, or "ecologically clean." To attract consumers, producers now use different labels, such as "bio" or "natural." This means that a great variety of such products, even truly organic ones, do not have a standard name. There are no special certificates. Yet Russians do understand that organic foods should not contain ingredients from environmentally unsafe areas, genetically modified organisms, and chemical fertilizers and additives like artificial colors, flavors, etc.
Europe has long had regulations that cover the organic foods market. For example, meat producers know that "organic" meat must come from cows that graze on clean fields, eat clean food and are slaughtered cleanly. Russia, on the contrary, has only general requirements for food products, which means that organic foods have to be formally certified as such by specialized European companies. But Russian producers are in no hurry to get such certificates.
There is only one important criterion for Russian consumers today: price. And food products that meet high ecological standards are not cheap.
Still, changes in Russian gastronomic preferences are in line with global trends, and all the more so because Russia will soon adopt standards for organic agriculture. Therefore, the new hunger for organic foods looks like it will gradually spread across the country.
By Alexander Yurov