This spring, Amanda Knudsen, a student at the Springboard School of Data, released Fresh Food for Thought: Trends in Organic Produce, a slide presentation that explores and analyzes data from OPN’s State of Organic Produce 2020 report and the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS).

The presentation was part of Knudsen’s coursework for the Data Analytics Career Track program at Springboard, which required her to produce a slideshow using data visualization software.

Amanda Knudsen, Student, Springboard School of Data

Knudsen decided to focus on organic produce at retail because of her longstanding interest in both health and sustainability as well as the COVID-related rise in grocery shopping.

“I've always been interested in fruits and vegetables,” says Knudsen, who previously worked as a project manager and creative producer and is now attending Springboard as part of a career pivot to data analytics. “Over the past several years, and especially in this time of COVID, I’ve noticed an increase in the availability of fresh organic produce at local grocery stores. I wanted to explore this observation through data visualization and data-driven storytelling for the first major project of my data analytics program.”

Knudsen chose to focus on weekly promotional pricing data because there was ample information available via the USDA AMS, and it was a topic that piqued her interest. “As a regular grocery store shopper, I found retail promotions and sales to be personally compelling and relatable,” she says.

“Over the past several years, and especially in this time of COVID, I’ve noticed an increase in the availability of fresh organic produce at local grocery stores. I wanted to explore this observation through data visualization and data-driven storytelling for the first major project of my data analytics program.” -Amanda Knudsen

Knudsen’s analysis of the data led her to make the following observations:

• Organics are taking promotional share from conventional produce. From 2010 to 2020, USDA’s Weekly Advertised Fruit & Vegetables Retail Prices reports reveal the share of organics increased from 3.6% to 14.1% of all produce promotions to consumers at major food retail outlets.

• Promotional performance growth of organic produce is outpacing conventional. Organic produce experienced a 781% increase in 2020 retail promotions from 2010 (over 7x growth) while retail promotions for conventional produce increased just 103% from 2010.

• Within organics, promotions may help drive sales. Among all organic produce at retail in 2020, apples were #1 in promotions, #3 in sales, and salads were #1 in sales, #3 in promotions. Relationships between promotions and sales performance may offer retailers valuable insights and areas of investment that could potentially lead to an increase in revenue.

Knudsen’s presentation specifically focuses on the sales and promotional data for four major organic produce commodities—apples, bananas, carrots, and packaged salads. She sourced sales data from OPN’s State of Organic Produce 2020 report and promotional data from USDA AMS.

As Knudsen notes in her presentation, “Collectively, apples, bananas, carrots, and salads (ABCS) represent 30% of organic promotions and 33% of organic sales dollars at US retail in 2020, yet promotional performance trends vary for each commodity.”

Knudsen’s main takeaways for each of the four commodities include the following:

• Organic Apples – Rather than an overall increase in promotions or prices, retailers may find more return on promotional investment with the 2-lb. bag sales unit where organics are promoted up to 16x more than conventional. Organic apples have the potential to bring in more value with attention to seasonal price adjustments, especially in autumn when average prices reach up to 90% above the price of conventional apples.
• Organic Bananas – Bananas may add value without additional promotions as 2020 organic retail sales dollars grew 11% from 2019 despite the fact that bananas make up less than 2% of all organic produce promotions. Increasing revenue from organic bananas may simply require increasing availability in-store rather than increasing promotions.

• Organic Carrots – Carrots ranked 5th in promotions and 5th in sales of organic produce at retail in 2020, indicating they are a reliable vegetable that is likely to remain in demand in the years to come. While average prices for organic carrots may not increase significantly, value can be achieved by maintaining a consistent price premium for 1-lb. bags of carrots of about 60% above the price of conventional carrots.

• Organic Salads – Packaged salads outperformed all other organic produce categories in retail sales in 2020 with 17% ($1.47B) total sales dollars and 15% year-over-year sales growth, yet they made up just 7% of organic produce promotions. Retailers are likely to continue to see strong sales performance from organic packaged salads and may find continued value in consistent price spreads of at least 30% between organic and conventional.

 “Collectively, apples, bananas, carrots, and salads (ABCS) represent 30% of organic promotions and 33% of organic sales dollars at US retail in 2020, yet promotional performance trends vary for each commodity.” -Amanda Knudsen

“Consumer investment in health, wellness, and sustainability is here to stay,” says Knudsen. “In fact, it seems it's going to continue growing in importance. The USDA data as well as the sales data reported by the Organic Produce Network indicate strong consumer interest in organic produce.”

For more information, please check out Amanda Knudsen’s full slide presentation here.