Open mouth, insert wallet?

Forbes is reporting that those assemble-your-meal places are facing a business crunch, what with the rising costs of basic ingredients and the possibility that many of the chains have grown too quickly without focusing on the fundamentals. ("Taking on Restaurants and Groceries," May 8, 08) It will be interesting to see whether these places can weather any belt-tightening shopping.

Meanwhile, an interesting little nugget in Marketing Daily suggests that high prices may not doom the recently-burgeoning organic market:

[A] study also found that when it came to buying organic--affluence was not a major factor. "People always ask the question of whether organic brands should market to rich consumers because they're more expensive," Welch said. "But our Mindsets are demographically neutral--so Openness 5's aren't just wealthy people. We found that organics is a state of mind, not a state of wallet."

-- "Organic Buyers More Open to New Experiences Than Average," May 9,09

It's an interesting finding in light of reports to the contrary.

I think over the next few months, the real proof will be in monitoring how sales are at places like Hansen's Natural, Kraft (which owns Boca foods and Back to Nature),  General Mills (which owns Cascadian Farm and Muir Glen), Dean Foods (owns Silk soymilk, Horizon, Organic Cow of Vermont and Alta Dena), Kellogg (which owns Morningstar, Kashi and Gardenburger) and Heinz (which owns a lot of organic brands, including: Earth's Best, Celestial Seasonings, Arrowhead Mills and Rice Dream, among others). We'll see whether Whole Foods' sales stay steady. Because, honestly, I think prices are only going to keep rising for organic foods -- in part because the suppliers were already having difficulty meeting demand, even before the worldwide food shortages ("Organic Food Industry in a Supply Crunch," AP, Jan 29, 08).

Comments

[Polly]

I buy organic even though it costs more (I usually buy free-range/pastured meat, though, since organic meat is really expensive and often unavailable anyway), and I plan to keep doing it. When I look at my food expenses, eating out is what's really expensive, and buying prepared foods is easily the second-most expensive thing, so when I'm looking to save, those are what I cut back on.