Health Food Sales in Step with Total Food Market

BOULDER, Colo.Health food sales grew 1.8 percent to reach $143 billion in sales in 2009, which is in step with the total U.S. food market, which grew 1.6 percent, reaching $628 billion in sales, according to Nutrition Business Journals 2010 Healthy Foods Report.

The Nutrition Business Journal noted staying at an equal pace with overall food industry grown is not good news for this market segment, as sales have been much better in previous years. They said the industry may have hit the bottom, but added data suggests growth within the next few years. They expect health foods should increase its share of the total foods market to reach 23-percent penetration by 2017.

In the report, Nutrition Business Journal includes four product categories in the healthy foods marketorganic, natural, functional and lesser-evil foods. Market-standard and conventional foods make up an additional, catch-all category for the total foods results. The report contains detailed analysis of each healthy foods category, and the food and beverage product lines they include.

They report natural and organic foods are expected to grow the most within the health foods categories in the next eight yearswith growth of organic reaching nearly 10 percent in 2012. They believe functional and lesser-evil foods will lose market share to the natural and organic categories in the future, but expect functional products to retain about a quarter of healthy food sales over the next eight years. Additionally, organic foods is expected to be the biggest competitor in healthy foods for the future with a forecast compound growth rate of nearly 9 percent, while they expect compound annual growth for the total health foods industry to be about 5 percent for the next eight years.