Consumer demand for food diversity: evidence for Germany

Whereas a large number of empirical studies have been devoted to analysing consumer demand for specific products, much less attention has been paid to the household’s demand for product variety (the number of different products consumed in a specific time period). This paper analyses consumer demand for food variety in Germany. The econometric analysis of 4632 households suggests that variety significantly increases with income and the number of children aged between 7 and 17 years and is significantly higher if the family lives in larger cities in East Germany, and the housekeeping person is not additionally working full-time. A single male household consumes a significantly smaller number of different food products. The significant (and positive) impact of household income on food variety is in line with the hypothesis that consumption evolves along a hierarchical order as income increases.  2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.