Prevalence of the "Natural" Label Varies by Food Category

Fred Kuchler and Megan Sweitzer

Amber Waves:The Economics of Food, Farming, Natural Resources, and Rural America, 2023, vol. 2023

Abstract: U.S. food suppliers use packaging labels to make claims that highlight production-process attributes some consumers want, often charging a higher price for those products than for products without label claims. Some suppliers use the “natural” claim or similar labels such as “all natural,” “100 percent natural,” or “made with natural ingredients.” Regulatory agencies treat the “natural” claim as meaning nothing artificial was added during processing and the product was minimally processed, so food suppliers can use it at a relatively low cost. Regulatory agencies’ policies regarding the “natural” label do not address human health, the use of synthetic pesticides, genetically modified organisms, hormones, or antibiotics in crop and livestock production. The size and scope of the market for food carrying a “natural” claim had not been previously explored in depth as have other food labels such as chicken raised without antibiotics, USDA organic, seafood ecolabels, grass-feed beef, and many more including non-genetically engineered.

Keywords: Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; Consumer/Household Economics; Crop Production/Industries; Environmental Economics and Policy; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Health Economics and Policy; Institutional and Behavioral Economics; Livestock Production/Industries; Marketing; Public Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/338928/files/P ... 0Food%20Category.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:uersaw:338928

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.338928

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Amber Waves:The Economics of Food, Farming, Natural Resources, and Rural America from United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().