Organic Food & Home Supplies: Just How Much Cost Difference is There?

Posted by: jandm in MyBlog on May 25, 2009

By Janice

Over and over you hear a variation of the statement, "I'd love to buy more organic products but it's just SOOOO expensive."  And locally there's a new variation:  "I love our new local store focused on organic and natural products, but Whole Foods is less expensive."  So I set out to find out for myself.  Not a huge scientific study, just a few observations you can evaluate for yourself.  I went to 3 fairly local markets (Safeway, Whole Foods, New Leaf Community Markets) and noted the regular and sale prices for leading brands:

WHERE I SHOPPED (San Mateo County, California, USA)

• • Safeway: I chose a nationally recognized brand to compare to their "Organic O" line
• • Whole Foods: I compared their "generic" 365 Organic brand to a nice looking organic brand
• • New Leaf:  I tried to match the brands selected at Whole Foods.

WHICH PRODUCTS I PRICED (just a few of the basics)

• • Coffee
• • Dozen Eggs
• • Gallon of 2% Milk
• • Loaf of Whole Wheat Bread
• • Gallon of Orange Juice (not from concentrate)
• • Window Cleaner
• • Toilet Paper (I had to adjust prices to compare similar square footage price)

WHAT DID I LEARN?
The bottom line?  Yes, buying organic is more expensive.  BUT NOT ALWAYS AS MUCH MORE AS YOU'D THINK!  You can study the full comparison chart, but here's what I took away from the experiment to help someone start to purchase more organic products on a budget:

1. Look for sales on organic products.  On sale they can be very close to regular priced "conventional" products
2. Biggest surprise for me?  Organic/recycled toilet paper!  It's a lot less expensive than squeezing a leading brand.
3. Look for what you consider is the best eco-value tradeoff.  Drink a lot of milk?  Maybe consider the impacts of organic milk production on the environment and your body compared to orange juice production.  4. Try alternating purchases.  When I first wanted to buy organic milk my jaw dropped at the price difference.  But it was extremely important to me that my baby have the best we could afford especially since so much of her diet involved milk (that was awhile ago).  So one time I'd buy organic, the next time conventional...after I got over the initial sticker shock I purchased only organic milk.
5.  Make trade-offs with yourself.  When I was ready to buy only organic milk I decided to buy only recycled toilet paper and use slightly less luxurious feeling toilet paper so we can have the organic milk.  Who knew that there was such a great savings in using recycled toilet paper?!

In the end, a family's budget is an extremely important aspect to considering what and when to buy organic.  But look to see where the differences are worth it to you, look for sales on organic products (and we haven't talked about the great organic farmers markets out there!), and take a first step.  The more demand there is for these products the more it will become available to us.  We can already see the effect it's having on mainstream producers, so do what you can for yourself, your family and our planet.

---  Janice