title: Do Consumers Want More Nutritional and Health Information on Wine Labels? Insights from the EU and USA.
abstract: The global strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol launched in 2010 by the World Health Organization includes, amongst several areas of recommended actions, providing consumer information about, and labelling, alcoholic beverages to indicate alcohol-related harm. Labelling requirements worldwide for alcoholic drinks are currently quite diverse and somewhat limited compared to labelling on food products and on tobacco. In this context, the current paper contributes to the academic and political debate on the inclusion of nutritional and health information on wine labelling, providing some insights into consumer interest in, and preferences for, such information in four core wine-producing and -consuming countries: Italy, France, Spain, and the United States of America. A rating-based conjoint analysis was performed in order to ascertain consumer preferences for different formats of additional information on wine labels, and a segmentation of the sample was performed to determine the existence of homogeneous groups of consumers in relation to the degrees of usefulness attached to the nutritional and health information on wine labels. Our results highlight the interest expressed by European and United States consumers for introducing nutrition and health information on wine labels. However, the results of conjoint analysis show some significant differences among stated preferences of the information delivery modes in different countries. In addition, segmentation analysis reveal the existence of significant differences between consumer groups with respect to their interest in receiving additional information on wine labels. These differences are not only linked to the geographic origin of the consumers, or to socio-demographic variables, but are also related to wine consumption habits, attitudes towards nutritional information, and the degree of involvement with wine. This heterogeneity of consumer preferences indicates a need for a careful consideration of wine labelling regulations and merits further investigation in order to identify labelling guidelines in terms of the message content and presentation method to be used.
authors.affiliation: Department of Economic and Legal Studies, University of Naples Parthenope, Naples 80133, Italy. azzurra.annunziata@uniparthenope.it.
authors.forename: Azzurra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Annunziata
authors.affiliation: Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry, University of Padua, Legnaro 35020, Italy. euguenio.pomarici@unipd.it.
authors.forename: Eugenio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pomarici
authors.affiliation: Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, Portici 80055, Italy. riccardo.vecchio@unina.it.
authors.forename: Riccardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Vecchio
authors.affiliation: Department of Economic and Legal Studies, University of Naples Parthenope, Naples 80133, Italy. mariani@uniparthenope.it.
authors.forename: Angela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mariani
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000009:adverse effects; D019973:Alcohol-Related Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D003258:Consumer Behavior; D003257:Consumer Product Safety / Q000592:standards; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005060:Europe; D005260:Female; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D015438:Health Behavior; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018673:Nutrition Policy; D009753:Nutritive Value; D011356:Product Labeling / Q000592:standards; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States; D014920:Wine / Q000009:adverse effects
keywords: conjoint analysis; consumer segmentation; cross-country analysis; health warnings; nutritional labelling; wine