Understanding how consumers categorise nutritional labels: a consumer derived typology for front-of-pack nutrition labelling.
Significant ongoing debate exists amongst stakeholders as to the best front-of-pack labelling approach and emerging evidence suggests that the plethora of schemes may cause confusion for the consumer. To gain a better understanding of the relevant psychological phenomena and consumer perspectives surrounding FoP labelling schemes and their optimal development a Multiple Sort Procedure study involving free sorting of a range of nutritional labels presented on cards was performed in four countries (n=60). The underlying structure of the qualitative data generated was explored using Multiple Scalogram Analysis. Elicitation of categorisations from consumers has the potential to provide a very important perspective in this arena and results demonstrated that the amount of information contained within a nutrition label has high salience for consumers, as does the health utility of the label although a dichotomy exists in the affective evaluation of the labels containing varying degrees of information aggregation. Classification of exiting front-of-pack labelling systems on a proposed dimension of 'directiveness' leads to a better understanding of why some schemes may be more effective than others in particular situations or for particular consumers. Based on this research an enhanced hypothetical front-of-pack labelling scheme which combines both directive and non-directive elements is proposed.
Food Consumer Behaviour and Health Research Centre, Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences, University of Surrey, Stag Hill, Guildford, Surrey GU2 7XH, UK. c.hodgkins@surrey.ac.uk
Charo
C
Hodgkins
Julie
J
Barnett
Grazyna
G
Wasowicz-Kirylo
Malgorzata
M
Stysko-Kunkowska
Yaprak
Y
Gulcan
Yesim
Y
Kustepeli
Sedef
S
Akgungor
George
G
Chryssochoidis
Laura
L
Fernández-Celemin
Stefan
S
Storcksdieck genannt Bonsmann
Michelle
M
Gibbs
Monique
M
Raats
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003258:Consumer Behavior; D003657:Decision Making; D004032:Diet; D005260:Female; D005515:Food Labeling / Q000145:classification*; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018673:Nutrition Policy; D009753:Nutritive Value; D055815:Young Adult