The effect of front‐of‐package nutrition labels on the choice of low sugar products. Issue 8 (10th April 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mauri, Chiara; Grazzini, Laura; Ulqinaku, Aulona; Poletti, Erika
• Is Part Of: Psychology & marketing. Volume 38:Issue 8(2021)
• Page Start: 1323
• Page End: 1339
• Publication Date: 2021-04-10
• Subjects: food choices -- front‐of‐package nutrition labels -- healthiness -- processing fluency -- traffic‐light labels; Marketing -- Psychological aspects -- Periodicals; Motivation research (Marketing) -- Periodicals; Marketing -- Aspect psychologique -- Périodiques; Motivation, Études de (Marketing) -- Périodiques; 658.80019
• DOI: 10.1002/mar.21473
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0742-6046

Abstract

Abstract: Policy makers around the world are facing serious challenges in controlling citizens' obesity and healthiness, hence, they devote increased attention to the development of tools that communicate easily processable nutrition information. Front‐of‐package nutrition labels are one of such tools and have been used to signal the extent to which food items contain potentially unhealthy ingredients such as sugar or fat. In this research, we focus on sugar cues on three different food categories to investigate their impact on consumer choice. We compare two labels, one already used (traffic‐light) and one never used (sugar teaspoon): sugar teaspoons prove to be more effective than the previously used traffic‐lights in healthy product choices, but only for specific food categories. In two experiments, we find that sugar teaspoon labels indicating sugar content, as opposed to traffic‐light labels, are more effective in signaling sugar levels and thus, in helping consumers making healthier choices. We find that this is particularly relevant for food categories that have a simpler ingredient composition (i.e., whose healthiness relies more heavily on sugar). We finally propose processing fluency as the mechanism for the relation between sugar signals and product choices.