Retail already reduces margins on organic products

The economic crisis caused at least some news that can be considered positive: eat organic food was cheaper. With sales slumping and the replacement by cheaper products, large retailers adjusted its marketing strategy for the new scenario, reducing margins and holding transfers in an attempt to ensure the advancement of the segment. In recent years, sales of foods considered healthy had double-digit expansion in the country.
Some groups of products, especially groceries, managed to get the minimum differences between an organic and conventional. Case of foliage, whose prices exceed in cents or $ 1.00, the conventional. And the lucky days of spawning of the gondolas-vegetables are highly perishable, the organic foliage can cost even cheaper than those sprayed with chemicals.
In the category of groceries, biscuits and organic flours are other examples of banks now smaller. "There are already categories more competitive even compared to imported items, such as milk and oils," said Daniela Pasquili, Manager of sales development of the sugar loaf. According to her, this is also possible due to exclusive trade agreements and purchase, which allow room for negotiations.
The retreat in prices does not mean that it was cheap to buy organic products in Brazil. It's just less expensive, which has the beneficial effect of keeping loyal customers in times of tightening. On the other hand, the supermarket owners are betting that the convergence of values would also be an incentive to attract consumers less attentive to eating healthy foods. But not everything tends to convergence: granolas and organic juices still cost twice as much (or more) in various squares in the country.
"This is not a better structuring of the production chain, which still has serious bottlenecks, either of a larger scale of production, which would contribute to reducing prices. The supply of organic raw material increased. What is occurring is a rearrangement of core business strategies and reduction of margins, "says one adviser, who declined to be named.
According to him, there is today a drop in sales of organic products, although smaller in comparison to other sectors. "The two digits, unlike other segments of the economy, because, despite the crisis, the consumer is more mature in relation to healthy food choices".
As Daniela, Sugar Loaf, the group maintains its goal to grow 20% in the segment, ten percentage points less than the result of 2014. In the first quarter, the category grew just 3%.
In the case of Walmart, the organic segment not only suffered losses in 2015 because hardly had a portfolio developed, i.e. the basis for comparison was very low. Last year, Walmart has invested in Exchange for equipment such as gondolas and modular chilled, giving more visibility to the products. With that, sold more. "In our case, the organic industry has grown three times as much as the other categories in 2014," says Luciano Nunes, commercial Director of Walmart's grocery. The expectation is for growth of about 5% for the sector in 2015.
The decision to reduce banks stems from the perception that the retail tendency to healthy eating is not fleeting. On the contrary, is consolidating. The example of developed countries, the Brazilian consumer also happened to read carefully the packaging than purchase.
In General, the category of healthy products helps pull the organic performance. In this group are the integrals, gluten free, dyes and diet, among others. A research of São Paulo supermarket Association (Apas) shows high of 1.5 percent in sales of groceries (like cookies) and 3% in salted (rice, pasta, etc) in 2014. When these same items are "healthy", the gains were even higher: 3% in sweet and salty 13%. "Health became concern greater than education in Brazil," says Rodrigo Mahanta, head of the Department of Economics of Apas.