Mauri, C, Grazzini, L, Ulqinaku, A orcid.org/0000-0003-3456-6451 et al. (1 more author) (2021) The effect of front-of-package nutrition labels on the choice of low sugar products. Psychology and Marketing, 38 (8). pp. 1323-1339. ISSN 0742-6046
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.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2021 Wiley Periodicals LLC. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Mauri, C., Grazzini, L., Ulqinaku, A., & Poletti, E. (2021). The effect of front-of-package nutrition labels on the choice of low sugar products. Psychol Mark, 38, 1323– 1339, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21473. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. |
Keywords: | food choices; front-of-package nutrition labels; healthiness; processing fluency; traffic-light labels |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Business (Leeds) > Marketing Division (LUBS) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 23 Feb 2021 15:13 |
Last Modified: | 10 Apr 2023 00:13 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/mar.21473 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:171391 |