NUTRITIONAL TRADE-OFFS A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TWO FOODS

E-ISSN： 2051-3631|9|3-4|156-163

ISSN： 1741-6264

Source： International Journal of Management Cases, Vol.9, Iss.3-4, 2007-01, pp. : 156-163

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Abstract

Concern about food choices that may have adverse effects on health is currently at the forefront of public health. Despite it being reported that healthy eating is one of the top five influences on food choice and that consumers are now choosing to eat healthier foods, obesity levels still remain high. The aim of this study was to investigate consumer risk-benefit trade-offs, when applied to the consumption of two foods with different perceived levels of nutritional quality and assess if they differ accordingly. Three stages of research were carried out. Initially 20 commonly consumed foods were chosen and 27 nutritional experts were asked to rate each one in terms of their contribution to achieving a healthy balanced diet. This identified a highly correlated risk-benefit continuum (r 0.963). For comparison purposes one food was selected from the high risk end of the continuum (beef burgers) and one from the low risk end (milk). The second stage of research involved the use of focus groups and structured interviews to determine the most important nutritional attributes and their levels involved in the purchase of each food. Finally conjoint analysis was used in order to generate data, which could be applied to model the nutritional tradeoffs amongst the two products. In this stage of research respondents were also asked to rate the nutritional risks and benefits they associated with four product scenarios (riskbenefit foods) not included in the main conjoint experiment. The effect of the socio-demographic, dietary and food attitude variables on consumer risk-benefit trade-offs were also investigated. Results from conjoint analysis demonstrated the importance of each attribute and generated utility scores for each attribute level. Beef content was the most important factor influencing choice of beef burgers followed by salt content and finally saturated fat content. For milk the most important influencing factor affecting choice was fat content followed in turn by omega-3 fortification and the addition of a probiotic. Looking at the effect of all demographic and individual factors on importance scores it was found that in general the population exhibited homogenous behaviour. Using the utility scores generated in conjoint analysis, a likelihood to choose score (LCS) was calculated for each of the four risk-benefit foods. Taking the population as a whole and when looking at the overall product ratings a strong relationship was found between perception of risks, benefits and the LCS for both milk and beef burgers. It was found that risk was negatively correlated to benefits and LCS, whilst benefits and LCS were positively correlated. Although this relationship was evident when looking at the generic product as a whole, it was not reflected in consumer ratings of each risk-benefit food. When looking at each product individually the assigned risk scores correlated very poorly with LCS and benefit scores.