Helping consumers with a front-of-pack label: Numbers or colors?

Paolo Crosetto, Laurent Muller and Bernard Ruffieux

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2016, vol. 55, issue C, 30-50

Abstract: This paper contributes to the debate on front-of-pack nutritional labels. Because of their dissimilar formats, Guideline Daily Amount (GDA) and Traffic Light (TL) may trigger different responses among consumers. While GDA is comprehensive and cognitively demanding, information is coarser and more salient in TL. We implement an incentivized laboratory experiment to assess the relative performance of GDA and TL labeling schemes in assisting consumers to build a healthy daily menu. Participants must compose a daily menu, choosing from a finite set of products, and are paid a fixed cash amount only if the menu satisfies pre-determined nutritional goals. Goals correspond to achieving the Guideline Daily Amount values of 1 (kcal), 4 (kcal, fat, sugar, salt) or 7 (kcal, fat, sugar, salt, fiber, vitamin C and calcium) different nutritional attributes. Three different labels, GDA, TL and a combined GDATL are provided. Results show that GDA performs better than TL when subjects do not face time constraints. When time is limited however, TL and GDA have identical efficacy with 4 nutritional goals, and TL even outperforms GDA with 7 nutritional goals.

Keywords: Nutritional labels; Food choice; Experimental economics; Guideline Daily Amount; Reference intake; Traffic Lights (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C93 D12 D18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:55:y:2016:i:c:p:30-50

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2016.03.006

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