Some like it healthy: can socio-demographic characteristics serve as predictors for a healthy food choice?

Authorising new health claims in Europe will favour the diffusion on the market of a greater number of foods with health claims. This scenario presents new opportunities to promote healthy food choices and launches new challenges to define strategies oriented towards promoting products on the market. The literature suggests that our understanding of consumers' sensitivity to health claims is still weak and should be further investigated. Our objective is to study the relationship between choice behaviour, attitudes and socio-demographic characteristics in order to identify the predictors of consumers' choices. Towards this end, we have conducted a choice experiment for extra-virgin olive oil on a significant sample of Danish and Italian consumers. Applying the latent class approach has enabled us to identify a niche of individuals sensitive of health claims and to characterise them with respect to the rest of the population. The results supply insights for the development of more targeted health consciousness campaigns, as well as for actions in food marketing.