GREEN is the new Black

Consumers are going green for new organic products. When I walk into the Wegmans' produce section there is a huge crowd around the organic vegetable section. Granted we are in Ithaca, which means that these people have been eating organic since the 70s. But this kind of consumer behavior is being duplicated all over the world. About five years ago, there was a boom in interest over fair trade products, especially in Latin America, which just keeps growing. Starbucks has a few fair trade blends, and Ben and Jerry's has fair trade ice cream. However, most fair trade products come from smaller manufacturers and more private distributors.

Also, globally (and you can really see this in the US) there is growth in established natural good stores. Global marketers are going to have to start pitching to the consumers natural side. Mintel, a global supplier of consumer, media and market research located in Chicago, has done research on the rising market change and is predicting a list of consumer packaged goods categories that will see "a big shift in the spectrum toward green."

Mintel predicts that the bottled water is going to have to under go a major face-lift in order to get their sales back up. Consumers are instead buying filters for their faucets, like Brita and Pur, and using reusable Nalgene like bottles to bring when traveling. They also predict that product labeling will become more user-friendly and ingredient labels will be formatted more like a recipe.

[MediaPostPublications]