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The pandemic turbocharged many trends that were already under way when the coronavirus struck the US early last year. One of them was consumer demand for food labelled “organic”, as shuttered restaurants and lockdowns forced many to see the contents of their refrigerator in a new light.
Indeed, 2020 sales of organic produce grew by 14.2 per cent. In the first quarter of this year, organic food sales rose by 9.3 per cent over the same period last year, topping $US2.2 billion ($2.8 billion) as shoppers sought to avoid the taint of artificial additives, fertilisers and pesticides.
“Some of the surge we’ve seen in organic sales in the pandemic has been because of the perception of safety,” said Melanie Bartelme, global food analyst at Mintel, a market research firm.