From plate to policy: segmenting consumers’ food behaviours to tailor nutritional recommendations in African cities

Malnutrition poses significant challenges to African food systems. Addressing these challenges requires synergistic strategies informed by a comprehensive understanding of consumers' food preferences and characteristics, which necessitates the identification of more homogeneous consumer groups. To help reach this objective, this article presents a novel segmentation of African urban food consumers from nine cities across Kenya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Tanzania. The segmentation is based on diet quality indicators and behavioural traits, gathered through structured surveys combined with incentivized in-lab behavioural experiments. Subsequent cluster analyses identified four primary consumer groups characterized by shared behavioural patterns, diet quality, and propensity to food change. These groups serve as the basis for tailored nutritional recommendations aimed at providing policymakers with practical solutions to reinforce the nutritional capacity of local food systems.