Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2024, 70(8):414-423 | DOI: 10.17221/394/2023-AGRICECON

Determinants of the demand for fruits and vegetables: Preferences by age and gender in EuropeOriginal Paper

Elena Hošková ORCID...¹, Iveta Zentková ORCID...¹

¹ Institute of Economics and Management, Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, Nitra, Slovakia

Fruits and vegetables form the basis of a nutritional diet for the population. In addition to the basic determinants, such as market prices and consumer income, other factors influence consumer demand.  This paper aims to investigate how the age and gender of consumers influence the demand for fruit and vegetables in different European countries. In this paper, the demand for fruit and vegetables is understood through the population’s preferences for fruit and vegetable consumption, i.e., the proportion of the population that prefers to consume fruit and vegetables five or more times a day. The paper uses data from Eurostat. Factor, cluster and correlation analyses were performed using the SPSS software. The results of the analyses showed that the gender significantly determines the demand for fruit and vegetables in favour of women. Regarding the effect of age, this determinant was positively correlated with the preference for 5FV consumption in most countries. Potential interventions to promote fruit and vegetable consumption should mainly target men aged 15–19 and 75+ in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Austria, Slovenia and Sweden, men aged 35–44 and 75+ in Croatia, Italy, Poland and Romania and women aged 15–19 and 55+ in Bulgaria and Romania, where their preference for 5FV was the lowest.

Keywords: consumers preferences; demand factors; European countries; five portions per day

Received: November 17, 2023; Revised: August 3, 2024; Accepted: August 9, 2024; Published: August 30, 2024  Show citation