ABOUT THE STUDY
People need nutrition in order to live. Not only is there enough food in Switzerland, but a large part of the population also has the purchasing power to buy sufficient supplies. Eating a healthy diet is important but not always easy. Processed foods in particular contain many additives and flavour-enhancing fats, sugars and salts. This is one of the reasons why the public debate often focuses on the nutritional aspects of our diet and on the respective roles and responsibilities of the various parties involved.
The actual dietary intake is difficult to determine and can only be estimated roughly. Due to the high relevance for different stakeholders, various methods have been developed in Switzerland to assess nutrition systematically. The figures of the studies available so far arrive at different conclusions: Agristat projects the kilocalories available per day and capita to be 3,050 kcal. However, this corresponds to the resources available for foreign business and first processing. menuCH arrived at a consumption of 2,232 kcal based on survey data.
There is currently no systematic and scalable approach to measuring consumption in Switzerland. Against this background, we would like to use the Swiss Nutrition Atlas to contribute to the measurement of dietary intake. The overriding objective is to draw conclusions about the Swiss population’s diet based on shopping data. Nutritional data provide systematic access to dietary data that can be automated and scaled with better understanding, allowing food intake to be recorded, modelled and analysed within a few weeks in the future. This approach is not only exciting from a consumer-oriented perspective but also offers nutritionists and physicians treating at-risk patients quick analysis options to identify unhealthy products among those actually consumed.
STUDY AUTHORS
Prof. Dr. Marc Linzmajer
Study Author and Project Manager
Dr. Marc Linzmajer is
Professor for Service Management at the Institute for Marketing & Service Research
the University of Rostock. In one of his research projects, he examines, among other things, the effects of sugar on consumer decision-making behavior.
Dr. Matthias Eggenschwiler
Study Author
Dr. Matthias Eggenschwiler is a research associate and postdoc at the Institute of Retail Management at the University of St.Gallen. As head of the Competence Center for Retail Strategy and Metrics, he focuses on the application of advanced data analysis methods to address management-related and socially relevant challenges and to develop innovative solutions.
Prof. Dr. med.
Dr. phil. Lia Bally
Study Author
Dr Dr Lia Bally is Professor, Head of Nutritional Medicine, Metabolism and Obesity and Head of Research at the University Clinic for Diabetology, Endocrinology, Nutritional Medicine and Metabolism at Inselspital Bern. Dr Dr Lia Bally is in particular concerned with the regulation of glucose homeostasis and disorders, which lead to diabetes and other diseases with impaired blood sugar control. In detail, the complex interplay between nutrition, hormonal responses, and metabolic communication between organs in people with diabetes and obesity is explored in detail.
STUDY SPONSORS
For research projects of this size, we always look for and need companies that will support the research financially. In this context, we would like to thank Aldi Suisse AG, Coca-Cola HBC Schweiz AG, Danone Schweiz AG, Lidl Schweiz AG and Schweizer Zucker AG for partially sponsoring this research project. The order of the companies is alphabetical and does not correspond to the amount of funding. The authors alone are responsible for the design of the study, the choice of research methodology, the data collection and analysis, the interpretation and the writing of the report.
Sponsor Data Collection February/March 2022
Sponsor Publication Meat Restricted Diets 2023
Sponsors Data Collection May/June 2024
Die Reihenfolge der Unternehmen ist alphabetisch geordnet und entspricht nicht der Fördersumme.
Sponsor Publication Planetary Health Diet 2025
CREDITS
We would like to thank all contacts from politics, industry, trade and research who were available to us during the research project and gave us helpful feedback on the project. We would especially like to thank the team at the Institute for Retail Management at the University of St.Gallen, who supported us in many ways and with data preparation.
Last modified: January 13, 2025