Young buyers, digital orders influence organic selections

By Bob Johnson 

Robby Cruz, Target’s vice president for produce, said one out of every five dollars spent on produce at the retail chain is now spent on organics, and millennial and Generation Z consumers shopping on their cellphones and other devices are driving the trend.

“Our digital customers are younger, and they see food as medicine,” Cruz told attendees at the Organic Produce Summit, held last month in Monterey.

Retailers, wholesalers and analysts who gathered at the conference said organic growers have cause for optimism about the future, thanks to younger consumers who demand more organic offerings in produce selections.

At the event sponsored by the Organic Produce Network, speakers said younger consumers are already influencing organic selections in retail outlets that previously largely carried conventional fruits and vegetables.

They said the trend is further driven by an easing of inflation and increased reliance on digital shopping.

“A good number of our conventional retailers are showing interest in organic,” said Patrick Haines, vice president of produce at United Natural Foods Inc., or UNFI, a produce wholesaler. “I think a lot of the millennial and Gen Z customers understand the totality of what organic is.”

UNFI ships a variety of organic and conventional products from its network of 58 distribution centers across the country.

Younger consumers are likely to purchase more organic produce as they reach important milestones in life, said Sherry Frey, vice president of total wellness at NielsenIQ, a global information services company.

“When couples move in together, they purchase more organic produce,” she said. “When they get pregnant or have a child, they buy more organic produce.”

NielsenIQ analyzes its store of consumer data to offer industries insights that enable them to better adapt to the latest trends.

According to Frey, consumers have returned to placing a higher priority on paying for healthier options after inflation caused a temporary pause.

“We are actually seeing ‘better for you’ increasing again,” she said of the healthful products sector.

Frey added that organic consumers want more from the supply chain than quality produce.

“Gen Z is different,” she said. “They care more about health and wellness than previous generations.”

Market influence of young consumers is growing, with buying power expected to surpass that of millennials by 2031. They are the natural and organic product industry’s most aligned consumer, according to the Organic Trade Association.

Frey pointed out that members of Gen Z are concerned about climate and environmental issues—and tend to care about the entire supply chain. In fact, NielsenIQ research found that 77% of Gen Z members surveyed said they won’t buy from countries with poor environmental standards.

“Waste is becoming more important to consumers,” Frey said. “Transparency drives trust, and trust drives loyalty.”

Nicholas Bertram, president and CEO of Flashfood, a Toronto-based marketing and technology firm, said the company offers a unique solution to produce waste. Bertram’s solution is to help retailers offer steep discounts on produce that is still good but must be eaten or frozen in the next day or two.

“We throw away over 30 million tons of produce a year,” Bertram said. “There was $473 billion in food waste in the U.S. in 2022. Thirty percent of the work you do ends up in landfills while your neighbors are hungry. There are 44 million people with food insecurity in the U.S., including one in five kids.”

Flashfood offers software that lets retailers offer discounts on produce that would otherwise be thrown away.

“Stores can use digital to sell food for same day consumption at half off,” Bertram explained. “Our No. 1 seller is the mixed-produce box.”

The company estimates it has already diverted 100 million pounds of food from landfills and saved consumers $280 million. Bertram said Flashfood software is used in 2,200 stores in the U.S., including stores in the San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley and Salinas Valley.

(Bob Johnson is a reporter in Monterey County. He may be contacted at bjohn11135@gmail.com.)