Consumer Demand for Personalized Nutrition and Functional Food

Abstract

New developments in nutrigenetic research and the European regulation 1924/2006 on health claims have spurred interest in developing and marketing functional food designed for personalized nutrition. Personalized nutrition uses genetic information regarding a person’s health risk profile. Specifically adapted nutrition recommendations are claimed to help reducing disease risk. An internet survey was conducted in December 2007 using a sample of 452 randomly selected adults in Germany. The survey instrument assesses if consumers would be willing to participate in genetic risk profiling, if they are interested in personalized nutrition advice and if they desire functional food products adapted to their individual nutrigenetic profile. In addition, we estimate the acceptance of functional food products designed to reduce the risk of cardio-vascular diseases. Consumers have a positive attitude towards the testing of their genetic profile to be used in nutrient advice. About 45 % of the sample would agree to such a test and like to obtain a personalized advice on nutrition. Similarly, more than 40 % of the sample showed a positive willingness to buy the proposed functional food products. Given these results, the concept of personalized nutrition seems promising. However, several challenges remain regarding targeted nutrition advice and food marketing.