The Wall Street Journal looks at the trends that have lifted sales of quinoa over the last five years … and cites trade statistics from Datamyne that measure the surge in imports and price of the Andean grain.
For most of the three decades that Ancient Harvest has been selling quinoa, business was relatively tame as it supplied boutique supermarkets and health-food stores.
That changed abruptly about five years ago. Major retailers started seeking out the brand—and sales took off.
Today, Ancient Harvest quinoa products—which now include quinoa linguine, quinoa mac and cheese, and hot cereal flakes, among other iterations—are sold at general retailers like Walgreens and Piggly Wiggly. Quinoa Corp., the brand’s owner, expects sales this year to double from their 2012 level, says Chief Executive Blake Waltrip, declining to disclose actual figures. Early on, “we were a small company that had no money to spend on marketing.