Purchasing Patterns for Nutritional-Enhanced Foods: The Case of Calcium enhanced Orange Juice

In recent times there has been a growing awareness of the importance of nutrition and the nutritional aspects of various foods. Products are now marketed by emphasizing their nutritional properties, and new products are often designed to serve a particular nutritional purpose. Nutrition concern has become an important force in successfully shaping food marketing. Nevertheless, obesity and other nutrition-related health problems have not abated, and in fact have worsened. A possible explanation for these disparate trends is that a subset of nutritionally-concerned consumers - consumers in less need of improved nutrition- is responsible for the majority of healthy food purchases, with most others ignoring the nutritional message. Thus, an important question is who buys foods with salient nutritional features? We investigate this question using the case of calcium-enriched orange juice. We find that, on balance, most calcium enriched juice is purchased by households who generally purchase more nutritious foods. This suggest they are demanding "nutrition," rather than the specific nutrient "calcium."Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,