Russians have become more attentive to stores that claim to be sellers of healthy food, according to a study by SberIndex.

"According to SberIndex analysts, Russians have become less likely to take for granted advertisements of retail outlets and networks positioning themselves, often without good reason, as health food stores," reads the report on Sberbank's website.

As a result of the report the growth of revenues in this segment has already been lower than in grocery stores last year (30% against 37.7% year to year) and at the end of the first half of this year the difference became even more noticeable, i.e. 6.1% year to year against 25%.

Experts attribute this to the fact that "healthy food" can now be found in most retail chains, where such products are a separate section, while in specialized stores "proper nutrition" the entire range is considered "healthy" by default, differing from the same competing products only in cost.

"If we talk about really trendy food trends, we should note the growing at an impressive rate of the ready-made meals delivery segment (+76.4% in the first half of 2021 compared to the same period in 2020). Its popularity is likely due to the options of customization to customer preferences and to the specifics of their diet plan," Sberbank noted.

The decline in consumer interest in outlets with so-called "healthy" food led to growth in the other direction: analysts noted that now there is a commercial success of companies from the official register of producers of organics of the Ministry of Agriculture.

These companies, according to SberInex, are often growing faster than the market. For example, the wholesale sales of farmers, who are engaged in cultivation of dairy cattle and the production of raw milk increased by 411% in the first half of this year, compared with the same period two years ago. Enterprises that were not on the register, on the other hand, increased their wholesale sales by only 33%.

"The turnover of enterprises in the category 'Mixed Agriculture' from the register of the Ministry of Agriculture grew by 240%, while the overall turnover of the respective industry grew by 42%," the bank concluded.

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Author: Ksenia Gustova