A cross-country experimental study on consumers' subjective understanding and liking on front-of-pack nutrition labels

Int J Food Sci Nutr. 2021 Sep;72(6):833-847. doi: 10.1080/09637486.2021.1873918. Epub 2021 Mar 3.

Abstract

Different Front-of-Pack (FOP) nutritional labels have been implemented in order to increase consumers' awareness of food nutritional quality and encourage healthier choices. However, few studies have analysed the effects of FOPLs on consumers' subjective understanding and liking across different socio-cultural contexts. This study tests the effect that the new enriched informative label NutrInform Battery and the summary label Nutri-Score have on subjective comprehension and liking across 2776 respondents of seven European countries (France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Spain). Main effects regarding socio-demographic differences are also explored according to extant literature and highlighting significant effects of education and income. This study therefore extends the current research on subjective understanding and liking with a cross-country analysis. Findings suggest that NutrInform Battery can help consumers in understanding information in a relevant way, obtaining the highest performance across countries and showing limited impact of socio-cultural differences.

Keywords: Front-of-pack nutritional label; NutrInform Battery; Nutri-Score; cross-country; liking; subjective understanding.

MeSH terms

  • Choice Behavior*
  • Consumer Behavior*
  • Europe
  • Food Labeling*
  • Food Quality
  • Humans
  • Nutritive Value