http://www.influxinsights.com/blog/ 2008-11-20T14:36:59Z http://www.influxinsights.com/blog/article/2019/whole-foods-reframes-for-the-the-recession.html Challenged with the image of "Whole Paycheck", Whole Foods looks to add a service dimension to its brand delivery by showing customers how to shop on a budget.<br><br><br><a target="_blank" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/edcotton/2868877504/" title="photo.jpg by ed100, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3094/2868877504_94b2d1a9fa.jpg" alt="photo.jpg" height="500" width="375"></a><br><br>Posted by Ed Cotton Influx Insights 2008-09-18T17:53:45Z http://www.influxinsights.com/blog/article/1409/organic-food---growing-fast--but-still-tiny.html The latest data from Nielsen shows that the organic food marketplace is growing rapidly <span style="font-weight: bold;">(+28%)</span> last year,&nbsp; but there's no category where organic has reached a 10% share. Milk is the largest, with 7% of sales, but overall, organic only accounts for just <span style="font-weight: bold;">over 1% of total sales. </span><br><img src="%3Ca%20href=" http://www.flickr.com/photos/edcotton/540647789="" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1138/540647789_9f9e3c17c5.jpg" alt="Organic Food Sales" height="375" width="500"><br><br>Obviously, there's a strong geographic skew; with high penetration levels in San Francisco, Miami, Portland, Seattle, Boston, Sacramentio, Hartford, Denver and Syracuse.<br><br>A Whole Foods manager in a local Marin store (Ground Zero for all things organic) told me that he was cutting&nbsp; back on stocking organic produce. They found consumers were not prepared to pay the inflated prices.<br><br>Despite all the recent hype, the category has some ways to go. Clearly more education is needed and the price gap between conventional and organic needs to close.<br><br>Posted by Ed Cotton Influx Insights 2007-06-11T10:04:22Z