What Is the Value Given by Consumers to Nutritional Label Information? Results from a Large Investigation in Europe

Abstract

Rationale: Nutrition labels on prepackaged foods have been widely advocated as a medium to foster healthier eating habits in the general population.Objective: The study is aimed at understanding how people value nutritional information on food labels, in particular for front-of-pack labeling.Methods: A phone-assisted survey of 7550 consumers in 16 European countries was conducted. People were asked about their opinion on nutritional information provided at different levels, from the media to public institutions, and their commitment to healthy behavior. The value of pack labeling was estimated using a willingness-to-pay (WTP) elicitation technique.Results: Older age groups (>45 years old), members of a larger family, people of low income or low education, and those who perceived themselves to be obese valued front-of-pack nutritional labeling. WTP estimates across all countries provided an average accepted added price of $4.32 to the overall yearly food expenditure (95% confidence interval, 3.33-3.68).Conclusions: Overall, perceived value of labeling is low. However, factors affecting the value for consumer of nutritional labeling appear to be strictly linked to the socioeconomic and health status of the respondents.

The types and aspects of front-of-pack food labelling schemes preferred by adults and children

“…While some previous research suggests that different population subgroups may react to FoPLs differently (Gregori et al 2015;Signal et al 2008), the present study yielded consistent trends in FoPL preferences across age, gender, SES, and BMI categories. For all subgroups, the HSR was the most preferred FoPL.…”

“…There is increasing interest in food labelling as a mechanism to improve people's diets at the population level to address high and growing levels of obesity and nutrition-related diseases (Cecchini and Warin 2016;Gregori et al 2014Gregori et al , 2015. In particular, simplified nutrition labelling located on the front of packs has the potential to effectively inform consumers of the healthiness of food products and assist them in making more informed food choices (Van Kleef and Dagevos 2015).…”

The impact of interpretive and reductive front-of-pack labels on food choice and willingness to pay

“…Age, gender, and socioeconomic status (SES) quotas were applied to recruit a diverse sample of Australian consumers (sample profile shown in Table 1 ). Respondents with a low SES background (i.e., those in Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) deciles 1 to 4) were deliberately oversampled (49% vs. 40% of the Australian population [ 37 ]) to reflect the tendency for these consumers to be less likely to make use of nutrition information [ 8 , 38 ], have poorer diet quality [ 39 ], and experience higher rates of diet-related diseases [ 40 , 41 ].…”

A cross-sectional survey of nutrition labelling use and its associated factors on parents of school students in Shanghai, China

“…There is an increasing interest in nutrition labelling as a mechanism to improve people's diets at the population level to address the high and growing levels of obesity and nutrition-related diseases (1)(2)(3) . Nutrition labelling provides information on the basic nutritional characteristics of foods, which enables consumers to make better-informed food choices (4,5) .…”