Effects of Digital Food Labels on Healthy Food Choices in Online Grocery Shopping

Abstract

In order to induce the shift in consumer behavior necessary for the mitigation of diet-related diseases, front-of-package labels (FoPL) such as the Nutri-Score that support consumers in their efforts to identify nutritionally valuable products during grocery shopping have been found to be effective; however, they remain non-compulsory in most regions. Counter-intuitively, a similar stream of research on digital web-based FoPL does not yet exist, even though such digital labels hold several advantages over physical labels. Digital FoPL can provide scalable and personalized interventions, are easier to implement than physical labels, and are especially timely due to the recent increase in online grocery shopping. The goal of this study was to demonstrate the technical feasibility and intervention potential of novel, scalable, and passively triggered health behavior interventions distributed via easy-to-install web browser extensions designed to support healthy food choices via the inclusion of digital FoPL in online supermarkets. To that end, we developed a Chrome web browser extension for a real online supermarket and evaluated the effect of this digital food label intervention (i.e., display of the Nutri-Score next to visible products) on the nutritional quality of individuals’ weekly grocery shopping in a randomized controlled laboratory trial (N = 135). Compared to the control group, individuals exposed to the intervention chose products with a higher nutritional quality (e.g., 8% higher healthy trolley index (HETI), 3.3% less sugar, 7.5% less saturated fat). In particular, users with low food literacy seemed to benefit from the digital FoPL (e.g., 11% higher HETI, 10.5% less sugar, 5.5% less saturated fat). Furthermore, participants exposed to the food label advocated its introduction more strongly than the control group (p = 0.081). Consumers worldwide could easily install such applications to display digital food labels on their end devices, and would thus not have to wait for stakeholders in the food industry to eventually reach consensus on mandatory food label introduction.

A Systematic Review of Marketing Practices Used in Online Grocery Shopping: Implications for WIC Online Ordering

“…Of these articles, 18 met the inclusion criteria and were included for data extraction and evidence synthesis, see Table 2 . Of the eighteen articles, nine studies were randomized controlled trials [ 46 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 59 ]. Another seven [ 44 , 45 , 47 , 48 , 53 , 57 , 60 ] were observational studies that primarily used quasi-experimental methodologies such as analyzing retail scanner data to follow the behavior of shoppers over time.…”

“…The included studies listed in Table 2 were all published between 2015 and 2022. Studies were conducted in Belgium [ 49 ], Denmark [ 56 ], Iceland [ 58 ], Iran [ 59 ], the Netherlands [ 52 ], Spain [ 44 ], the United Kingdom [ 45 , 46 , 48 , 50 , 54 , 55 ], the United States [ 53 , 57 , 60 ], and multiple or unspecified European countries [ 24 , 47 , 51 ].…”

Effects of Digitalized Front-of-Package Food Labels on Healthy Food-Related Behavior: A Systematic Review

“…In our review, two articles found differences in purchases [ 48 , 50 ] while one article did not find differences [ 67 ], one article found differences in hypothetical choice [ 61 ] while one article did not find differences [ 52 ]. Regarding research in the literature review, one article did not find the difference [ 41 ] while one article found an increase in purchase [ 42 ], two articles found a difference in hypothetical choice [ 38 , 39 ], and one article found a difference in self-reports [ 40 ] as a function of digitalized interactive FOP food labels. The effects of digitalized technology-enabled FOP food labels and their effects on healthy food-related behavior were the same as in articles identified in this review and previous research [ 15 ] indicating a lack of research regarding digitalized technology-enabled FOP food labels, as shown in Table 1 .…”

“…Likewise, the participants were presented with the FOP food labels and could get more information about the labels or nutritional information by clicking on a specific button. Their results indicate that introducing these FOP food labels did not change overall purchases nor sales of products without “red labels.” Fuchs and colleagues [ 42 ] investigated the effects of interactive FOP food labels on purchase and self-reports of healthy foods in a laboratory-based online grocery store. Specifically, they developed a Google Chrome extension that displayed Nutri-Score for product-specific food products.…”

“…In addition, the effect was stronger for individuals with low food literacy and individuals that were exposed to such labels showed stronger advocacy for introduction of such labels. Hence, one article shows that digitalized interactive FOP food labels did not influence purchase [ 41 ] while one article found an increase in purchase [ 42 ], two articles show that digitalized interactive FOP food labels influenced hypothetical choices [ 38 , 39 ], and two articles show that digitalized interactive FOP food labels influenced self-reports of healthy foods [ 40 , 42 ].…”