Consumer Purchase Behaviour of Foods with Added Phytosterols in Six European Countries: Data from a Post-launch Monitoring Survey

A variety of foods with added phytosterols (plant sterols and stanols, PS) known to lower elevated blood cholesterol is available on the European market. This paper reports findings from a 2015 post-launch monitoring survey on consumer purchase behaviour of foods with added PS in UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium and Greece. Data from 80,825 households were included. Households were divided into categories depending on number of purchases, household size, age of primary shopper and presence of children <5 years. Penetration rates of households purchasing foods with added PS ranged between 3 and 34%. Of households purchasing PS, 34-61% purchased infrequently (≤2 times/year), 29-36% occasionally (<monthly) and 11-33% regularly (at least once a month). Most PS (62-100%) were purchased in spread format. Of regular purchasers, 98-100% of the total PS amount was purchased by households with a primary shopper aged ≥35 years and ≤1% by households with children <5 years. Median PS intakes ranged from 0.11 to 0.30 g/d for all purchasers, from 0.26 to 0.37 g/d for occasional purchasers and from 0.91 to 1.44 g/d for regular purchasers and are hence well below recommended intakes. Intakes exceeding 3 g/d only occurred in 2.5% of purchasing households in UK and Belgium.