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Excess weight is a problem affecting over half of the British population, with some categories being more at risk than others, in particular in lower socio-economic groups. In that respect, differentiated dietary behaviours are known to contribute to inequalities in health outcomes. Segmentation is increasingly employed as a means of better targeting policy interventions. While conventional segmentation methods divide the population according to their dietary choices or according to socio-demographic characteristics, a potential flaw in this approach is that people may choose to consume a bad diet for entirely different reasons, or that people from different socio-demographic groups may behave in a similar fashion. We use a novel alternative approach which seeks to segment according to peoples dietary preferences. The method estimates a finite mixture of AIDS. We identify segments which have a degree of homogeneity in their food purchases, while remaining heterogeneous in terms of their socio-demographics. The homogeneity of food purchases within components is less than within components identified using k-means clustering of food choices. We argue that this approach will lead to more effective targeted interventions because they would appeal to the reasons for bad dietary choices rather than the choices themselves.

Household food consumption data is used to estimate likely changes in diet under healthy eating guidelines, and the consequences this would have on the agricultural sector in England and Wales. The first step entails imposing nutrient restrictions on food consumption following dietary recommendations. The resulting diet is then used as a proxy for demand in agricultural commodities, to test the impact of such a scenario on agricultural land use and production. Results of the diet optimisation indicate a severe drop in foods rich in saturated fats and sugar, essentially cheese and sugar-based products, along with lesser cuts in fat and meat products Conversely, consumption of fruit & vegetables, cereals, and flour would increase to meet dietary fibre recommendations. Such a shift in demand would dramatically affect production patterns: the margin of England and Wales agriculture would rise, due to increased production of high market value and high margin crops. Some regions would however be negatively affected, mostly those regions dependent on beef and sheep production that could not benefit from an increased demand for cereals. The effects of these changes would also be felt in upstream industries such as feed suppliers.

Concern over diet-health relationships has moved to the forefront of public health concerns in the UK and much of the developed world. It has been estimated, for example, that obesity costs the UK National Health Service up to £6b per year (Rayner and Scarborough, 2005), but if all consumers were to follow recommended healthy eating guidelines there would be major implications for food consumption, land use and international trade (Srinivasan et al, 2006). This is unlikely to happen, at least in the short term, but it is realistic to anticipate some dietary adjustment toward the recommendations, resulting in an improvement in diet quality (Mazzocchi et al, 2007). Although consumers are reluctant to make major changes to their diets, they may be prepared to substitute existing foods for healthier alternatives. Three of the most prominent nutritional recommendations are to consume more fruit and vegetables, which contain phytochemicals beneficial to health, reduce consumption of saturated fatty acids (SFA) and increase intake of long-chain n-3 fatty acids (FA). In the first case, consumption of fruit and vegetables has been stable at around three 80 g portions per person per day according to the Health Survey for England. It is estimated that 42,200 deaths per year could be avoided in England and 411,000 Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) could be saved if fruit and vegetable consumption were increased to the recommended 5 portions per day (Ofcom 2006). As well as continuing to encourage people to eat more, it could be desirable to ‘intensify’ the beneficial phytochemical content of existing fruit and vegetables.

We report results from an investigation into consumer preferences for locally produced foods. Using a choice experiment we estimate willingness to pay for foods of a designated origin together with certification for Organic and GM free status. Our results indicate that there is a preference for locally produced food which is GM free, Organic and produced in the traditional season.