Australian Consumers Are Willing to Pay for the Health Star Rating Front-of-Pack Nutrition Label.

Sheri L Cooper,Therese A O’Sullivan,Maria M Ryan,Amanda Devine,Johnny Lo,Simone D Scagnelli,Lucy M Butcher

doi:10.3390/nu12123876

Abstract

The Australia and New Zealand Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation has supported the recommendations set out in the 2019 Health Star Rating System Five Year Review Report. Specifically, the forum supported, in principle, Recommendation 9, to mandate the Health Star Rating if clear uptake targets were not achieved while the system is voluntary. Given that mandatory labelling is being considered, it is important to investigate how much consumers value the Health Star Rating in order to understand potential consumer uptake and inform industry. The aim of this study was to assess consumers’ valuation of the Health Star Rating system by analysing their willingness to pay for a packaged food product with the Health Star Rating label, utilising a double-bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation approach. The results indicate that almost two-thirds of Australian household grocery shoppers were willing to pay more for a product with the Health Star Rating, on average up to an additional 3.7% of the price of the product. However, public health nutrition benefits associated with consumers’ willingness to pay more for products with the Health Star Rating is currently limited by the lack of guarantee of the systems’ accuracy. Given consumer support, a well validated and comprehensive Health Star Rating labelling system can potentially improve health outcomes, cost effectiveness and reduce environmental impacts.

Highlights

Nutrition labelling is considered a crucial part of the multiple strategies used by policy makers to address diet-related chronic disease [1]
The results showed that of the three Front-of-pack labels (FoPL) tested, only the Health Star Rating (HSR) resulted in significantly greater willingness to pay (WTP) for healthier versus less healthy product versions across all foods tested
The results indicate that consumers classified as having Low food security, followed by the Very Low (AUD) for a box of cookies with the Health Star Rating on the front of the pack, where a box without food security group, were the least likely to disagree with the statement that ‘a HSR would make it the Health Star Rating costs Australian dollars (AUD) 3.00

Summary

Introduction

Nutrition labelling is considered a crucial part of the multiple strategies used by policy makers to address diet-related chronic disease [1]. Front-of-pack labels (FoPL) are designed to provide convenient and readily understood nutrition information on packaged foods to encourage healthier food choice and purchase behaviour [2]. Kingdom’s Multiple Traffic Light label, where coloured traffic lights are used to categorise the level of Nutrients 2020, 12, 3876; doi:10.3390/nu12123876 www.mdpi.com/journal/nutrients. New Zealand, the Health Star Rating (HSR) FoPL system aims to provide convenient, relevant and readily understood nutrition information by using a rating from half a star to five stars, where more stars indicate a healthier choice within a given food or beverage category [8,9]. The HSR system is a joint Australian state and territory governments and New Zealand government initiative developed in collaboration with industry, public health and consumer groups [8]

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