Guideline Daily Amounts Versus Nutri-Score Labeling: Perceptions of Greek Consumers About Front-of-Pack Label

Lamprini Kontopoulou; Georgios E Karpetas; Ourania S Kotsiou; Evangelos C Fradelos; Ioanna V Papathanasiou; Foteini Malli; Dimitrios Papagiannis; Dimitrios C Mantzaris; Chantal Julia; Serge Hercberg; Pilar Galan; Morgane Fialon; Konstantinos I Gourgoulianis

doi:10.7759/cureus.32198

Guideline Daily Amounts Versus Nutri-Score Labeling: Perceptions of Greek Consumers About Front-of-Pack Label

Cureus. 2022 Dec 5;14(12):e32198. doi: 10.7759/cureus.32198. eCollection 2022 Dec.

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Nursing, Respiratory Disorders Lab, University of Thessaly, Larissa, GRC.
² Faculty of Medicine, Medical Informatics Lab, University of Thessaly, Larissa, GRC.
³ Faculty of Nursing, University of Thessaly, Larissa, GRC.
⁴ Faculty of Nursing, Community Nursing Lab, University of Thessaly, Larissa, GRC.
⁵ Nutritional Epidemiology Research Team, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, Paris, FRA.
⁶ Public Health Department, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, Paris, FRA.
⁷ Faculty of Medicine, Pulmonology, University General Hospital of Larissa, Larissa, GRC.
⁸ Faculty of Medicine, Pulmonology, University of Thessaly, Larissa, GRC.

Abstract

Nutrition information is becoming more urgent than ever so that consumers can make informed choices when buying food. This study aimed to investigate consumers' perceptions and behavior of the front-of-pack label (FOPL), between two specific labeling systems, the Nutri-Score and the Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA). This is a post hoc analysis of data from a previous, more extensive cross-sectional study conducted from April 2021 to June 2021. A total of 510 participants were included in the study, of whom 49.6% were women. Participants' perceptions were assessed in nine questions on a five-point Likert scale (1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree). Multivariate variance analysis (MANOVA) was performed to test the effects of the label GDA vs. Nutri-Score on the overall positive and negative perceptions. We found that the Nutri-Score label was significantly more understandable (p=0.003), clear, visible, and preferable (p<0.001) than the GDA label, which required more time to be understood. The findings indicate that the interpretive label, Nutri-Score, was superior to the non-interpretive label GDA, in terms of consumers' perception, more visibility, less time-consuming, and reliability. The FOPL can improve the ability of consumers in Greece to understand the healthfulness of food products.

Keywords: behavior greek consumers; food policies; front-of-pack nutrition label; nutritional labelling; promote health.