Recession
John Foraker, Once Upon a Farm: I am worried about the economy, and the impact of a recession coming out of nowhere and slamming the natural and organic food space. If we have a shock of some kind triggering a recession that impacts consumer confidence, it will impact this space.
Retailers will pull back on breadth of assortment (predominantly impacting smaller brands). Consumers, retailers & big CPGs will be more price sensitive and less willing to take risks on new innovation. Investor capital will become harder to get, and many other similar impacts.
This is an inevitable cycle that we saw in 2000-2001, and again in 2008-2009. Many participants in the industry now are relatively new and I don’t think they are aware how economic cyclicality impacts the business in this space.
People are constantly looking for better and healthier options, which helps insulate to a degree, but not enough if the economy gets rough. Value becomes more important in these times and every business needs to think through what that means for their plans
