Nutrition Labeling Schemes and the Time and Effort of Consumer Processing

Manuel Alonso-Dos-Santos, René Quilodrán Ulloa, Álvaro Salgado Quintana, Diego Vigueras Quijada and Pablo Farías Nazel
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Manuel Alonso-Dos-Santos: Administration Department, Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción, oncepción 4090541, Chile
René Quilodrán Ulloa: Administration Department, Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción, oncepción 4090541, Chile
Álvaro Salgado Quintana: Administration Department, Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción, oncepción 4090541, Chile
Diego Vigueras Quijada: Administration Department, Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción, oncepción 4090541, Chile
Pablo Farías Nazel: Departamento de Administración, Facultad de Economía y Negocios, Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8330015, Chile

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 4, 1-10

Abstract: Guideline Daily Amount (GDA) and nutrition tables are the most used front-of-pack (FOP) nutrition labeling schemes in the world; however, they are hard to process considering the nutritional knowledge, effort, and time needed for interpretation. Consumers spend little time and effort evaluating food products. Consumers are selective, and FOP nutrition labeling schemes should be too. Recent studies have shown that warning messages—a new FOP nutrition labeling scheme—improves consumers’ ability to correctly identify less-healthy products. This study proposes that warning messages are also easier to process. Using eye-tracking, this study demonstrates that warning messages require less processing effort and time than GDA and nutrition tables. This study also shows that females process warning messages easier than males. Additionally, this study found no significant differences between physically active and inactive consumers in their processing of warning messages. The results are robust across product categories and brands.

Keywords: front-of-pack nutrition labeling schemes; warning messages; eye-tracking; consumer processing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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