Abstract:

This article is a cross-national analysis of the marketing channels with regard to the organic market from the European Union. The analysis is carried out on the organic markets in Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, countries that at the end of 2017 were in the first positions regarding the size of the organic food market. The article highlights the competition between general and specialized retailers, as well as how their importance evolves over time and in relation to the size of the total organic market. Thus, it is noted that in most of the analyzed countries the importance of general retailers increases over time if the organic market grows in turn, thus managing to weaken the strength of specialized stores or even to stop their growth. However, against the backdrop of a spectacular growth of the market, in France, the specialized organic stores continue their ascent with approximately the same proportion as the general retailers. The article proposes a link between the evolution of the market size and the importance of marketing channels, this topic being a basis for future research.