The USDA Foreign Agricultural Service published a report about the EU 27 Organic Products Market, which states a growing demand for organic products in the EU. The vast majority of organic processed foods and beverages available in Europe are still produced by local manufacturers, but these needs organic inputs from all over the world. 
The European organic consumer market, worth about US-$ 26 bn in 2008, is the biggest in the world. With an estimated population of 500 m, the EU-27 is one of the most densely populated regions of the world. Its GDP per capita (USD 33,000) ranks among the highest. Unemployment within the EU-27 is expected to increase from 8.3 % in 2009 to 9.6 % in 2010. At the same time inflation will remain low at 1 % in 2010. Despite the current economic situation, the demand for organic products in the EU continues to grow as organics have gone mainstream.
The most important driver is considered to be the predominance of large supermarket chains, which has resulted in a greater availability of organic products. Not only have supermarkets embraced organic products, increasingly they have placed organic products on the shelves next to non-organic products. As a result they have become available for a larger audience. Specialty stores of organic products still play an important role as they are also becoming more professional and offer a wider assortment than regular supermarkets.

The European organic consumer market is the biggest in the world. The largest markets are in descending order Germany, France, the UK and Italy as they represent 72 % of European organic sales. The highest market share and sales per person of organic food products were however reached in Denmark, Austria and Switzerland.
Consumers of organic products in Europe can roughly be divided in two groups. The first group, the so-called „regular buyers‟, is a rather small group that has been buying organic products for decades. This group includes environmentalists, lovers of nature, and socially conscious people. Although this group is small, they are responsible for almost half of European organic sales. Regular buyers tend to buy at organic specialty shops or farmers‟ markets. For them price is not an important purchasing decision factor. The second and much bigger group is quite different. Double-Income-No-kids households, older consumers (aged 50-75) and New-Trends seekers will fall in this group. They buy organic products for various reasons, including healthy lifestyle, food safety concerns, animal welfare, sustainability, quality and taste of food, price, innovative packaging. This group, the so-called „light buyers‟, buys organic products mainly at hyper-/supermarkets. This is the group that the organic industry should focus on to generate further growth in the near future. At the retail level, the distribution of organic products is different in each member state. In the UK and Nordic countries for instance most organic food sales are generated in supermarkets. In the Netherlands the market for supermarkets and organic specialty shops is more evenly divided. In neighboring Germany, discounters and supermarkets dominate the distribution market for organic food, predominantly under their private labels. In Spain and Italy most organic sales are generated in organic specialty shops.