Authors:
Dr Josephine Wills, European Food Information Council, Brussels
Professor Klaus Grunert, Professor of Marketing, Aarhus School of Business, Denmark
In some countries, nutrition labelling has been a major instrument for providing consumers with information at the point of purchase, enabling them to make nutritionally appropriate choices. Although consumers claim to use nutrition labels, there are indications that this is not always the case, or that the information is being misunderstood.
In recent years, there has been considerable discussion on nutrition information on labels, with a particular focus on interpretational aids. One central idea has been the distinction between front and back package labels, where a simplified message on the front label (‘signposting’) summarises the more complex information that is given on the back of the product. Much of this work has been commissioned by key stakeholders in the European food sector.
Studies from 2003 that have been made available, have recently been reviewed for EUFIC by Professor Klaus Grunert of the Aarhus School of Business, Denmark. Altogether, 58 relevant papers or reports were identified, of which 13 were in the peer-reviewed literature. Analysis of the studies was guided by a theoretical framework that considered search, exposure, perception, liking, understanding (subjective and objective), inferences and use.
People claim to look at nutrition labels, but less often under certain circumstances, such as when there are time constraints. Fat, calories and sugar are the nutrients in which most people are interested.
Understanding of nutrition labels is hampered by technical terminology, numerical calculations, and, for some people, percentages. Some nutritional terms (fat, sugar, calories, vitamins, salt) are better understood than others (saturated fat, sodium, fatty acids, cholesterol) and consumers appear to combine label information with their own stock of knowledge to make inferences about the product’s nutritional qualities.
New front-of-pack formats with % GDA (guideline daily amount) information are generally liked and believed to be understood.
Four major conclusions emerge from this review:
- There is widespread interest for nutrition information on food packages. Consumers generally understand the link between food and health, and many are interested in using information about the nutritional properties of the food they eat. However, the degree of interest differs between consumers and varies across situations and products. In addition, it can conflict with other interests in food, notably taste, traditional eating, and indulgence.
- Consumers like the idea of simplified front-of-pack information but differ in their liking for the various formats. These include health logos, ‘traffic lights’, GDA-based systems and energy labels. Differences can be related to conflicting preferences for ease of use, being fully informed, and not being pressurised into behaving in a particular way. For example, many consumers like colour coding, but some regard reds and greens on food products as too coercive.
- Most consumers understand the most common signposting formats and they can replay key information presented to them in an experimental situation.
- We still have virtually no insight into how labelling information is, or will be, used in a real world shopping situation, and how it will affect consumers’ dietary patterns. Understanding on-pack nutrition information in isolation is very different from understanding what this information means in the context of a weekly shopping excursion or composing a balanced diet.
Addressing this last point is a key priority for future research. Ideally, such studies would also examine differences in interest and motivation across different consumer types, determinants of liking for different label formats, inferences that are drawn from nutrition labels, and dietary intakes in relation to use of label information.
.jpg)