Organic food should not be hyped into a luxury

■If organic products are to win a broader market, the approach of going the “luxury” route and simply raising prices probably will not work. Pricing that is out of touch with reality not only fails to play the “leveraging” role of spurring demand, but instead leaves consumers with the impression of “hype” and “unreliability”

Recently, a price list for organic products from a company's product ordering fair sparked heated discussion among netizens. On this price list, a jin of organic rice reached 63 yuan, a jin of organic coarse grains also cost more than 60 yuan, and a 500-milliliter bottle of organic soybean oil was priced as high as 239 yuan…… Whether organic products are worth eating and whether people can afford to eat them became a focus of attention for a time.

Organic food, a concept still unfamiliar to many consumers just a few years ago, has now entered people's daily lives. When shopping in large supermarkets, it is not hard to find prominently placed and finely decorated organic food sections; on e-commerce websites, various organic foods have also become the focus of extensive and heavy marketing promotion……

Pesticide residues, excessive chemical fertilizers, improper ripening agents…… These frequently exposed food safety incidents prick consumers' nerves and have also gradually boosted the reputation of organic food, which emphasizes being “all-natural, healthy, and pollution-free.” In consumers' eyes, the relatively strict production conditions of organic food have become safety valves safeguarding “the safety of what we eat.”

However, organic food, which enjoys a good impression among consumers, is in reality “tripped up” by price and encounters the awkward situation of being “applauded but not purchased.” Half a jin of chicken feather greens costs more than 20 yuan, and a jin of spinach costs more than 40 yuan. Compared with ordinary products, organic products are often several times or even more than ten times more expensive, described by some consumers as “priced like health supplements”; many consumers admit that at first glance organic food often attracts them with its beautiful appearance, but when they look at the price tag, they back off.

The quality of some organic products is hard to match their high prices. Because industry standards are not strong, some companies that only hype the “organic” concept and raise product prices neglect quality control in the production process, resulting in uneven quality of organic products on the market, making it hard for consumers to tell the genuine from the fake.

It cannot be denied that the high prices of organic products have certain objective reasons. Production bases do not use pesticides or other prohibited substances for three years, seeds have not been modified through genetic engineering technology, and production bases have no soil erosion or other environmental problems…… These relatively strict production conditions mean that organic products are produced on a smaller scale, require large labor input, and involve relatively high risk costs and transportation costs, so their selling prices are naturally somewhat higher.

But if organic products want to win a broader market, the approach of going the “luxury” route and simply raising prices probably will not work, and more thought still needs to be given to tapping the needs of ordinary consumers. Pricing that is out of touch with reality not only fails to play the “leveraging” role of spurring demand, but instead leaves consumers with the impression of “hype” and “unreliability.”

More attention should also be given to product quality. It is no exaggeration to say that in today's food sector, where a crisis of trust is spreading, organic food carries the hopes of many consumers for food safety. Compared with other sectors, the organic industry enjoys a somewhat higher level of trust, but this trust is also very fragile. To protect this trust, companies certified for organic products need to work hard on quality control. Producing more genuine and trustworthy products and letting more ordinary people fully enjoy “the safety of what we eat” will give the organic products industry more staying power for development.