Price barrier to healthy diets

I hesitate to disagree with a trio of such august organisations as the Consumer Goods Forum, Boston Consulting Group and Nielsen. But perhaps I’m not disagreeing with them. Maybe it’s the way their findings have been presented or reported.

The findings in question are in a report on ‘How The Consumer Industry Can Boost Healthier Eating’. It was based in part on a survey of 7,000 consumers in 7 major economies.

• 97% of consumers said their health was important.
• 80% cited the higher price of healthy food as a key hurdle.
• 43% argued that healthy food ‘does not taste as good’.
• 32% remarked that healthy food was not satiating.
• 36% weren’t sure which foods were healthier.

Confusion abounds in diets and healthy eating. There’s lots of emotion and hype as well as science, which itself is constantly evolving.

To me, the problem with this survey is that it simply echoes the prevailing view that healthier food is more expensive. I’ve no doubt that there are places where healthy food is not widely available, though 73% in the survey declared it was both ‘widely available and accessible’.

My belief is that healthy food is also more affordable than we think and not necessarily more expensive than less healthy options.