Consumer Acceptance of Functional Foods and Their Ingredients: Positioning Options for Innovations at the Borderline Between Foods and Drugs

Consumer acceptance is pivotal for the market success of new functional food products. Thereby, the acceptance is mainly influenced by three factors: consumer characteristics, purchasing situation and products characteristics. The study at hand analyses these influence factors using the example of joint health ingredients (e.g. glucosamine). Consumer acceptance of functional ingredients seems to be influenced by the degree to which consumers know and understand the functional benefit of certain ingredients. Moreover, consumer knowledge depends on the consumers’ individual health status, as this determines the specific involvement of consumers as regards information searching for a specific functional nutrition. A deeper understanding of between consumer characteristics like the health status and consumer knowledge can be used to advice for successful product positioning of new functional food products in the emerging new industry segment between foods and drugs.