Increasing fruit and vegetable consumption whilst incorporating consumer preferences

All the main demographic groups (Female and Males aged 11 upwards) in the United Kingdom (UK) do not consume the government s recommended 5 a day target for fruit and vegetables. Understanding how a 50 percent increased consumption of fruit or vegetables would impact on the whole diet of these demographic groups requires the incorporation of price and income elasticities and a diet model similar to Irz et al (2015). This study used data from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS) and price data from Kantar Worldpanel for the period 2008 to 2013. This study has estimated eight demand systems which represent the eight demographic groups of interest. This is a departure from the previous literature which has relied on household level demand systems to represent the different demographic groups. This study estimated similar diet models to Irz et al (2015) and found that increasing fruit consumption would have the most beneficial change in diet as measured by the Mean Adequacy Ratio (MAR). The demographic group of Males aged 11 to 15 resulted in an approximate increase in the MAR of 5 percent thus experienced the largest improvement in diets as a result of a 50 percent increase in fruit. Acknowledgement : This work was funded by the Scottish Government s Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division (RESAS) Theme 3 programme (Food, Health and Wellbeing).