A comparison of front-of-pack nutrition claims between the US and EU

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -This paper aims to compare the use of front-of-pack nutrition claims made on 32,257 food labels launched in 2009 in the US and the EU. Design/methodology/approach -Information from Mintel's Global New Product Database was analyzed, for 25,417 products launched in the EU and 6,840 in the US. The hypothesis was that "products launched in the US and EU have a different frequency of front-of-pack nutrition claims". Using inferential statistics, significant differences (two-tailed Z-tests) in the number of claims are explored and compared to differences in legislation standards and consumer preferences. Findings -The initial analysis revealed that there were six significant differences between the presence of the seven health and nutrition claims across 16 product categories in the US and the EU. Further analysis of the 16 product categories revealed a range of significant differences between the frequency of US and EU claims. Originality/value -The emerging relevance of front-of-pack nutrition labeling as a marketing tool makes such differences pertinent. This paper marks the first systematic comparison of the use of claims between the US and EU.

Consumers’ exposure to claims on pre-packed bread: the case of a developing country, Lebanon

“…Non-nutrient claims regulations might be needed to help food industries in better labeling as not to mislead consumers. Moreover, the higher prevalence of nutrition claims as compared to the health claims could be because of their role as good marketing tools used by food production companies and to less stringent regulations for their use, while the use of health claims requires scientific substantiation as not to mislead consumers (Salnikova et al, 2014;Al-Ani et al, 2016). Comparison in the use of claims between countries is relevant mostly because of major regulatory differences.…”

“…In most developed countries, guidelines and standards are well established to regulate and control these claims and to protect consumers from misleading information (EC-Regulation,1924/2006CAC/GL 23, 1997;Salnikova et al, 2014). In developing countries, those guidelines and regulations are either outdated or not well implemented.…”

“…They should be formulated in a way that allows consumers to understand the beneficial effects of the product (EC-Regulation,1924/2006. Their presence plays a role in influencing the consumer purchasing decision, thus increasing sales and making their use attractive to food manufactures (Salnikova et al, 2014;Hieke et al, 2015;Sandvik et al, 2018;Menger-Ogle and Graham, 2018;Benson et al, 2018). The literature showed that nutrition claims were more commonly used than health claims and their prevalence varied significantly across countries between 15.7 per cent in Latvia (Murniece and Straumite, 2014) and 47.3 per cent in Ireland (Lalor et al, 2010).…”

“…Several major issues were identified related to the use of unauthorized claims, unclear statements and inconsistent size or font (Murniece and Straumite, 2014;Lwin et al, 2015). Evidence also showed that their use is on the rise worldwide, yet there is still a lack of studies which have examined the use of claims on pre-packed food in developing countries, especially in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region (Williams et al, 2003;Salnikova et al, 2014;Al-Ani et al, 2016;Grafenauer and Curtain, 2018).…”

Food label design – exploring the literature

“…(2) "Design" OR "Theory" OR "Theories" AND "Food label". Legendre and Coderre (2018), Leufkens (2018), Brierley and Elliott (2017), Kumar and Kapoor (2017), Abdul Latiff et al (2016), Chan et al (2016), de-Magistris andGracia (2016), Dixon et al (2016), Liang (2016), Lwin (2015), Samotyja (2015), Spaulding et al (2015), Teng and Wang (2015), Tonkin et al (2015), Huang and Lee (2014), Mohamed et al (2014), Bui et al (2013), Kimura et al (2011) Evaluation of consumers' preferences about several styles of food labels de-Magistris et al (2017), Salnikova et al (2014), Ares et al (2013) Recognition about consumers' needs about food labels information Bissinger and Leufkens (2017), Choi and Choi (2016) Test on label understandability Ares et al (2012), Smith et al (2011), Rousu and Corrigan (2008) Table I. Different scopes of food label theories from literature analysis…”