September 18 (SeeNews) - Romania's bio-products market is expected to grow by 30% this year to 20 million euro ($23.4 million), according to a research conducted by local online store Getbio.ro.
Market participants estimate that the growth trend will continue until 2020, Getbio said in a press release on Tuesday.
You can download the 2023 Agriculture industry in Southeast Europe report here
"Bio products represent a small proportion of the market but after the record increases in recent years, we are confident that more and more consumers will understand the benefits of these products and slowly introduce them into their lifestyle," Sergiu Moga, Getbio store manager, said.
The upward trend in organic food consumption in Romania is the result of a combination of various factors such as higher purchasing power, better consumer education, more options for retail outlets of bio products, as well as supermarket chains with areas specifically dedicated to such products.
However, in comparison with other EU markets, the Romanian organic products market is still at an early stage, the research showed.
"In Romania, the trend of healthy nutrition and the purchase of bio products is rather declarative at the consumers' level than at the shelf. Sales of organic products are between 2% and 3.5% for most food categories, while in the non-food products area, the share of healthy products in total sales volume does not exceed 2%," Sergiu Moga added.
As for the European Union, Germany has the largest organic food market with sales of 9.5 billion euro per year. In terms of market share, bio products have the best performance in Denmark, with 9.4%, followed by Luxembourg with 8.6%, Switzerland with 8.4% and Germany with 7%.
($=0.8562 euro)