Study in three continents finds low availability of organic food and drink in city stores. Organic food and drink are far less available to shoppers than conventional groceries, the first study of its kind has confirmed.Making organic groceries more affordable, more available and more appealing to consumers could help enable a shift towards more sustainable consumption, the research indicates. Making organic groceries more affordable, more available and more appealing could encourage consumers to buy them, research shows. International study A research team led by the Division of Global Agriculture and Food Systems examined the availability, price, and marketing practices associated with organic produce from stores in neighbourhoods in cities in the UK, India and Brazil. Postgraduate students coordinated data collection across these three countries as part of their research on sustainable food systems.The team composed a typical shopping basket of 14 everyday products and checked in hundreds of stores whether organic options were for sale, and how they were presented.They found low availability of organic products overall, although it was relatively higher in the UK compared with Brazil and India.In all, slightly more than one-third (37 per cent) of more than 800 vendors surveyed sold an organic option of any of the items included in the shopping basket. Costly option The team examined pricing by focusing on organic rice as a staple food, and found this was much more expensive - 1.8 to 2.5 times the price – compared with non-organic rice, even in lower-income neighbourhoods. Fewer than one in 10 – some 8 per cent – of organic products used a price promotion, suggesting that affordable organic options are still limited.Greater research and use of marketing initiatives is needed to boost consumer demand for organic foods and beverages, making them more affordable and widely available, to encourage a shift towards more sustainable food systems, the team found.Collaboration between policymakers, the private sector and researchers could consider how best to market purchases of organic products. For example, public information campaigns that advertise the benefits of organic products have boosted sales in countries including Denmark and France.In addition, interventions to make organic food more affordable and widely available are needed, the team says. This will require addressing the higher cost of producing and distributing organic products and shifting incentives for farmers, distributors, and retailers, they add. Organic food and drink remains a niche market in spite of evidence pointing to its benefits for the environment, consumers and farmers. Interventions to make organic food more widely available, with a price point and marketing initiatives that are acceptable to shoppers, could help to establish more sustainable food supplies in countries around the world. Alexandra Sadler Global Agriculture and Food Systems Related links Scientific publication Image credit: Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash. Publication date 12 Nov, 2025
