Do flexitarians care about eating organic?

Given that flexitarians account for up to 90% of sales of plant-based alternatives, it’s clear that this is the demographic that brands and retailers should be targeting in order to achieve mainstream success for their plant-based products.^[1]The NPD Group (2019): Plant-based Foods: Will They Stay or Will They Go? Available at: https://www.npd.com/news/press-releases/2019/plant-based-foods-will-they-stay-or-will-they-go/ Accessed … Continue reading But, when it comes to using organic ingredients, the question is: do flexitarians care?

When asked how regularly they eat organic food products, almost 45% of flexitarians in the US eat organic products frequently or always. This stands in contrast to the 25% of US consumers who eat organic food products but don’t follow any sort of diet principle such as flexitarianism or veganism. On the other hand, consumers who follow no diet principle are twice as likely to never eat organic products, compared to flexitarians.^[2]Data courtesy of Innova Market Insights (2022).

At the same time, research by Innova Market Insights tells us that, for US consumers buying plant-based meat alternatives, organic labelling is the most important influencing factor. In comparison, organic labelling is only the fourth most influential factor for those US consumers who do not follow any particular diet principle.

In a recent poll, we asked our network about their organic plant-based purchasing habits, and found that almost half of respondents buy organic plant-based products all the time or most of the time. At the same time, almost a third of respondents highlight that they rarely buy organic products due to high costs, indicating that there is still a desire for organic plant-based products among this group, just at a lower price point.

Overall, it’s clear that flexitarians care a lot about organic products, compared to the average non-flexitarian. If you’re a business looking to grow your profits and expand your consumer base, it’s worth noting that combining plant-based products with organic labelling presents a key way to target different motivations of flexitarian consumers at the same time.

A recent article on the New Food Hub, entitled ‘Plant-based vs organic: what matters to consumers?’, takes a deep dive into the pros and cons of organic certification for plant-based products, and highlights examples of different brands’ approaches. If you’d like to find out more about the key benefits and challenges of producing organic plant-based foods, make sure to read the full article on the New Food Hub.