Cross-European and functional food related consumer segmentation for new product development

Functional Food emerged as a constant segment in the Europeanfood market and offer potential for product innovations which make themattractive for the food industry in nearly stagnating markets. Target groupresearch is one key factor for successful innovative food products. The aimof this project was to develop and test a Functional Food related consumersegmentation model. For this purpose a survey was conducted in Germany,the United Kingdom, Poland and Spain with a total of 590 respondents.Factor analysis revealed consumers' motivation to buy or to refuseFunctional Food. Motives, consumers' knowledge about Functional Food,their trust towards diverse actors in the context of nutrition and theirpurchase pattern were used in a cluster analysis and resulted in eightconsumer segments. These groups differ significantly regarding sociodemographiccharacteristics. A conjoint study examined consumers'preferences towards a new type of orange juice enriched with functionalingredients recombined with different health claims. Aggregatedpreferences for single consumer segments provide indications for targetgroup specific product development. Cross- country comparison ofconsumer segments showed distinct shifts of segments' distribution in singlecountries. This might be considered for companies' marketing approachesor the European commission's health and consumer protection policy.