Comparison of Healthiness, Labelling, and Price between Private and Branded Label Packaged Foods in New Zealand (2015–2019)

Abstract

We aimed to compare New Zealand private label (PL) and branded label (BL) packaged food products in relation to their current (2019) healthiness (sodium and sugar contents, and estimated Health Start Rating (HSR) score), display of the voluntary HSR nutrition label on the package, and price. Healthiness and HSR display of products were also explored over time (2015 to 2019). Data were obtained from Nutritrack, a brand-specific food composition database. Means and proportions were compared using Student t-tests and Pearson chi-square tests, respectively. Changes over time were assessed using linear regression and chi-square tests for trends (Mantel–Haenzel tests). Altogether, 4266 PL and 19,318 BL products across 21 food categories were included. Overall, PL products in 2019 had a significantly lower mean sodium content and price, a higher proportion of products with estimated HSR ≥ 3.5/5 (48.9% vs. 38.5%) and were more likely to display the HSR on the pack compared with BL products (92.4% vs. 17.2%, respectively). However, for most food categories, no significant difference was found in mean sodium or sugar content between PL and BL products. In the period 2015–2019, there were no consistent changes in estimated HSR score, sodium or sugar contents of PL or BL products, but there was an increase in the proportion of both PL and BL products displaying HSR labels. In most food categories, there were PL options available which were similar in nutritional composition, more likely to be labelled with the HSR, and lower in cost than their branded counterparts.

Front-of-Package Nutrition Labeling and Its Impact on Food Industry Practices: A Systematic Review of the Evidence

“…The study found that 80% of products adhered to the Iranian Traffic Light system after two years of voluntary compliance plus two more years of enforcement [33]. Overall, food retailers were the most common users of voluntary labels, labeling products of their own brands [20,31,35,45,49,55,57]. In contrast, manufacturers' brands had lower [31,50] and more selective uptakes [49,54], leaning towards displaying labels on products with healthier scores [27][28][29]35,37,42,50,51,55,57].…”

“…The Health Star Rating system is the summary design that has been most widely studied. Researchers have found no [31] or minor effects in reformulation, no higher than 5% sodium reduction [28,41], and from 2014 to 2016, a study found a mean of 2 kcal per 100 g energy decrease in packaged foods [40]. However, a study examining food products marketed toward children reported that after two years of Health Star Rating label implementation, all Health-Star-Rating-labeled products had been reformulated compared to 60% of non-labeled products [42].…”

“…Data collection systems varied within studies. The majority of articles collected information directly from packages (n = 18) [20,[27][28][29][30][31]34,35,37,41,42,45,50,51,54,55,57,61], three studies used self-reported information from foundations or manufacturers [49,53,56], two gathered information through a review of the literature [33,38], and one study had no information on data collection [40].…”

“…Table 3 shows that interpretative voluntary labeling systems present low uptakes, lower than 35%, regardless of their design. Nevertheless, labeling adoption increased over time in most cases [31,35,50,53,55,56,61]. The only label that did not was the Canadian Health Check logo found on less than 5% of products in 2009-10 years after implementation-and which was discontinued in 2014 [34].…”

Food Composition and Dedicated Databases: Key Tools for Human Health and Public Nutrition

“…Concerning dietary assessment, Witkowska et al [22] reported the assessment of plant sterols in the diet of adult polish population with the use of a newly developed database. Regarding food labeling, Castro et al [23] reported the comparison of healthiness, labeling, and price between private and branded label packaged foods in New Zealand (2015-2019).…”