Foodsectornews.com - Italy – Going Strong in Organic Food Industry

Italy – Going Strong in Organic Food Industry

Tuesday, 19 June 2007

Italy isn’t about heritage sites anym.ore. The country is a leading name in the global organic food industry and has been crowned as the organic ‘Country of the Year’

Anabio, the Italian association for organic agriculture, has released the figures for period 2004 to 2006 indicating that the Italian organic industry is showing positive trend in all major zones – sales, export, and turnover.

As against 2004, the sales of organic products in the domestic market have grown by 197%, except supermarkets that have shown a regression in sales.

According to the figures revealed by the Italian Foreign Trade Institute (ICE), in Italy, over 50,000 farms are devoted to organic farming, out of which 30% are located in the southern regions of Puglia and Sicily.

Average turnover for distributors and processing units in organic farming has raised 89% in 2006 from 27% in 2005. The most impressive results are posted by export sector in the time span of 2004 to 2006. Italian exports jumped to 487% with UK (140%) and Germany (112%) being the highest exporting countries. Organic products export to countries outside EU hiked with 66.7%.

Around 45,000 cultivators, over 4500 processing units, and 185 importers make Italy one of the most important and reputed names in the global organic food industry, at the 5th rank after Australia, Argentina, China, and US. Italy is the premier nation worldwide in the organic production of grapes, olives, corn, and citrus.

In BioFach 2007, an international organic farming trade fair, Italy was named as organic ‘Country of the Year’.

ICE said, “This recognition highlights the importance of organic farming in Italy, a sector which has an annual turnover of €1.7 Billion with exports valued at €700 Million”.

RNCOS report “European Organic Food Market” says that Italian organic food market made total revenue of US$ 3.27 Billion in 2006, showing a CAGR of 5% for the period 2002 to 2006. The market is expected to grow actively with a projected CAGR of 5.98% during the period 2007 to 2011 and is likely to touch the mark of US$ 4.39 Billion by 2011 end.