Food purchase behaviour in a Finnish population: patterns, carbon footprints and expenditures

Summary

OBJECTIVE: To identify food purchase patterns and to assess their carbon footprint and expenditure. DESIGN: Cross-sectional. SETTING: Purchase patterns were identified by factor analysis from the annual purchases of 3435 product groups. The associations between purchase patterns and the total purchases' carbon footprints (based on life-cycle assessment) and expenditure were analysed using linear regression and adjusted for nutritional energy content of the purchases. PARTICIPANTS: 22 860) of the largest food retailer in Finland. RESULTS: patterns. CONCLUSIONS: pattern resulted in a low energy-adjusted carbon footprint but high carbon footprint per euro. This suggests a preference for cheap nutritional energy rather than environment-conscious purchase behaviour. Whether a shift towards a pl