Older consumers' attitudes towards food carriers for protein-enrichment

Understanding the demands of older consumers is of importance for successful development of functional foods targeted at this segment of the population. This study aimed to examine older adults' attitudes towards food carriers for protein enrichment. In total 182 consumers (mean age: 66.6 ± 6.9) participated in a survey designed to evaluate their willingness to try and purchase 16 target food carriers for protein enrichment. Food carriers were chosen to vary systematically on three fundamental dimensions: healthiness (healthy vs. unhealthy), novelty (traditional vs. novel), and types of meal (meal-component vs. snack). Results showed that among the carrier formats, older consumers were most willing to purchase and try healthy, traditional meal component foods enriched with protein. By segmenting older consumers using a latent class approach, an increase in purchase willingness of protein-enriched foods was found when protein-enriched foods were tailored to particular segments, suggesting that a segmentation-based approach to product development would be beneficial. Future studies may need to explore older consumers' actual purchase intention through the tasting of appealing protein-enriched foods in real life, which might help reduce older consumers’ skepticism towards protein-enriched foods.