Australian Organic Market Reporting - Tracking Horticultural Organic Growth, Trends and Markets (HG08080)

This is a final research report from Hort Innovation’s historical archives. Please note that as these reports may date back as far as the 1990s, the content and recommendations within them may be superseded by more recent research.

What was it all about?

The organic market sector in Australia had been growing, and there was clear demand signaled from the major supermarkets to obtain more such produce. The challenge for the organic industry had been to rise to meet this demand, and to track progress and developments within the sector.

The project “Australian Organic Market Reporting” arose due to the recognised need from within industry, including retailers, to increase the understanding of the organic marketplace and the nature and extent of organic producers across sectors.

Since this program began it had become evident that this report was being used as an important tool by producers benchmarking their own investments and developments in the sector. This report also was playing a vital role in information dissemination to those either involved in, or looking at investing into, this market and industry segment.

The project objectives included creating a focal point for the collation of more reliable data sets to track industry growth, in what was a very fractious and diverse industry and marketplace. The project produced two reports, in 2010 and 2012, being the Australian Organic Market Report, creating a tracking mechanism for past and future growth for the industry.

The benefits and outcomes to further the development of the organic horticulture industry have included:

• The solid establishment of biennial research and reporting on industry development
• The provision of information and data for industry stakeholders to base business and research investment decisions on
• Information on trends in the consumer marketplace to assist producers and others in the supply chain in understanding the organic demand and meeting this demand.

The industry was now reliant on, and expectant of, this biennial report as part of a longer term tracking and benchmarking tool for the industry, while continuing to play a crucial role in production and investment decisions for horticultural primary producers and others in this supply chain through to retail.