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Focuses on fat substitutes or replacement in foods. Outlines the functions of fats in foods and details the characteristics of ideal fat substitutes. Summarizes the implications for consumers and processors of their use.

An understanding of consumer behaviour will enable service providers to segment their client base and target specific customer groups with strategies designed to meet their retail needs. Hence, an insight into and understanding of how consumers interact with and evaluate a retail offering will help improve customer service and satisfaction. The purpose of this paper is to examine the changes in consumers' food retail behaviour with regard to the demographic variable of age, based on the older population. This paper focuses on food shoppers aged over 60 years living independently in Northern Ireland. The retail geography in Northern Ireland has changed and whilst affecting all consumers has impacted to a greater degree on older consumers. This and the fact that the over 60 age group is increasing demographically illustrate why this consumer segment is worthy of greater consideration.

A quantitative methodological approach is employed and data are collected using a consumer questionnaire (n=791). The questionnaire is analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 15.

The results show that as age increases older consumers' retail buying and food‐related behaviour changes. A decline in patronage of multiple retailers is evident as age increases; as is consumers' perceived value of multi‐purchase promotions and nutritional confidence. Alongside increasing age there is an apparent increase in the use of local shops, the enjoyment gained from shopping, the difficulty experienced in accessing food retail sites and the problems experienced when cooking.

This paper suggests that age may be used to differentiate between customer groups and retailers must take age into consideration when providing a product offering and in retail provision for the elderly consumer.

This paper fulfils a need for information on older consumers' retail behaviour in Northern Ireland and offers advice to food retailers attempting to better serve this increasingly important consumer segment.

It is widely acknowledged that eating habits established during adolescence can follow on into adulthood. Consequently, the fact that body dissatisfaction and dieting are very prevalent among adolescent females offers some cause for concern. The aim of this study is to determine body satisfaction/dissatisfaction levels, body weight concerns and dieting practices among a sample of 400 adolescent (13‐17 years) females in the Republic of Ireland (ROI).

A total of 400 female adolescents attending either a fee‐paying school or a school within a disadvantaged catchment area, in both rural and urban areas (four schools in total), completed a self‐administered questionnaire within the school setting during class time.

High levels of body shape dissatisfaction and dieting existed, with 80 per cent (n = 320) of the girls stating that it was important for them to be thin and 49 per cent (n = 197) engaging in some form of dieting behaviour. Younger respondents were more likely to be satisfied with their current body shape and not dieting than older adolescents. Indeed, the results demonstrated a statistically significant difference (F = 6.854, df = 3, p < 0.001) between the mean ages of respondents who were dissatisfied with their body shape and had dieted.

There remains potential for educational intervention that will encourage healthy eating practices as opposed to dieting among this target group and particularly within the school setting.

The observations in an article upon British wines which appeared in the January issue of the JOURNAL have occasioned the publication in The Wine and Spirit Trade Review of some comments endorsing views which we set forth, and also the publication in the same periodical of a letter addressed to the BRITISH FOOD JOURNAL, from Mr. G. Gordon Watt, of Messrs. Lamb & Watt, Ltd., in which he protests against certain views which he attributes to us, but which, in fact, are nowhere to be found in the article in question. The policy of this JOURNAL for the last nearly fifty years has always been to encourage and assist the producer of good and genuine products, and our duty to the public and to the honest manufacturer is to call attention to practices which we consider are not in the best interests of either. We do not underrate the position which the British wine industry has won for itself; the fact that in pre‐war years some six million gallons of these wines were produced and sold, sufficiently attests their popularity and the need which the industry meets, and undoubtedly it has played an important part during the war years in filling the gap created by the almost total exclusion of the importation of foreign wines for the British market. British wines are perfectly good and genuine products and occupy a legitimate position in the beverages of the country provided that they conform to the descriptions under which they are sold. In this connection we adhere to the opinion which we have already expressed, that where wines bear a foreign appellation, such as “Port Type,” “Sherry Type” or “British Sherry,” the purchaser is entitled to expect that the fruit of the vine is an essential part of the raw material used in the production of the wine. It has been suggested that it would be useful to both makers and consumers if some standard could be established for British wines which would prevent the sale under that description of concoctions which have none of the attributes of wine. In the event of standards ultimately being established, we are of the opinion that for the purposes of preservation it is desirable that wines of the Port and Sherry types should contain 28/29 degrees of proof spirit.