Consumers Say They Will Eat Healthier-And Do!

A new study from ACNielsen's Consumer PreView service found that consumers who recently indicated an intention to eat healthier have, in fact, made purchases in line with that intention.

The study by the Schaumburg, Ill.-based market research company compared buying behavior among consumers

who, in a March/April 2002 survey, said they planned to eat healthier in the next six months with those who said they did not plan to eat healthier. Subsequent purchasing was analyzed within four categories-salad dressing, ice cream, mayonnaise and frozen dinners-that include products that make health-related claims such as low fat or reduced calories, versus those without healthy claims.

Across all four categories, consumers who intended to eat healthier showed a higher incidence of purchasing the products within each category that had healthy claims. Those consumers were also found to be less deal sensitive when it came to purchasing products with healthy claims. (And in at least one of those categories, ice cream, that development has not gone unnoticed by manufacturers, who according to this month's cover story have responded with a blizzard of "good-for-you" products.)

According to Nick Sorvillo, senior vice president, ACNielsen Homescan, "What consumers say they will do and what they actually do are often in conflict. However, when it comes to eating healthier, we found that consumers are, in fact, backing up their intentions with their purchase decisions. The fact that they are less deal sensitive when it comes to purchasing products with healthy claims is further evidence of their resolve to eat healthier.

"The take-away for marketers is that they must continue moving beyond segmenting consumers by demographics alone and tailor their efforts to different attitudinal segments," he concludes

Organics All Or Nothing

The same PreView study also examined attitudes toward organic offerings, and found that organic food buyers are extremely loyal to the category, and intend to keep buying organic products, but that non-buyers have virtually no interest in organic items. Of the onethird of consumers who have purchased organic food or beverage products in the past six months, nearly all, 85% plan to continue purchasing organics. Hoawever, among non-buyers, only 3% plan to buy such products in the next six months.

The study's results suggest that price is a major barrier to broad acceptance of organic products. When asked how they feel about organic products, 63% agreed that "organic products are more expensive than similar non-organic products," far ahead of other attributes such as "no pesticides" (41%), "healthier" (26%), "do not contain genetically modified organisms" (22%), "better quality" (14%), and "less likely to have a food allergy reaction" (13%).