Algae as a food ingredient – identification of key target groups

Facing growing world population and a need for healthy and sustainable food systems, algae as a new food ingredient, could serve as useful alternative to animal proteins for human consumption. Which target groups need to be addressed in order to integrate algae into their diet is still not properly understood. Our current study aimed to identify possible target groups for algae consumption, to describe them and to work out which communication strategy is needed in each case. Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) and principal component analysis of mixed data (PCAmix) combined with agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC) were used to examine and to describe possible target groups. Results show, that four main target groups could be identified, who differ in their experience with algae as food but especially in their requirements for a targeted approach. Crucial for the largest group is that they have to be offered algae directly for tasting, as they lack the initiative.