According to research by the Dutch Consumers’ Association, the price of organic produce in supermarkets has fallen. Five years ago, organic products were around twice as expensive as non-organic ones. Now, the difference is only 63 percent.
The research was conducted on 115 products at 14 different supermarkets and 4 specialised organic shops. The prices for these products were compared and it turns out that Dirk has the cheapest organic products on offer, 13 percent less expensive than the average.
Coming in second, just after Dirk, is Vomar, whose organic products were 11 percent cheaper than the average. Specialist organic shops are more expensive than supermarkets, with prices around 15 to 28 higher than the average. However, these specialist shops have a much greater range on offer, with thousands of products to choose from whilst supermarkets offer 1.000 at best. Lidl and Aldi, for example, only stock 100 organic products in their supermarkets.
Whilst many organic products cost more than non-organic ones, this doesn’t always have to be the case. Often, supermarket own-brand organic products are actually cheaper than A-brand ones. For example, orange juice from the brand Appelsientje is 40 cents more expensive than Albert Heijn own-brand organic orange juice.
To give you another example, a carton of semi-skimmed milk from the brand Campina costs 1,21 euros at the Hoogvliet supermarket, whilst the store’s own-brand organic version costs only 1,02 euros. In 2017, consumers in the Netherlands spent about 1,5 billion euros on organic products, according to industry association Bionext. Organic eggs and dairy products saw the biggest increase in expenditure, namely 17 and 11 percent respectively.