Abstract
The packaged foods sold in food stores may be “private-label” products (PL), when branded by the supermarket, and “branded” products (BR). PL products are generally cheaper than the BR counterparts, and this can be perceived as a sign of general low quality by consumers, when items are compared with their branded counterparts. Thus, the aim of the present study was to compare the nutrient content of BR and PL cereal-based foods, by evaluating the nutritional declaration reported on the food pack of products on the home-shopping website of major retailers present on the Italian market. A total of 3,775 items (~58% BR and ~42% PL), collected in the period from July 2018 to March 2019 and updated in March 2020, were included in the final analysis. Data were analyzed by means of the Mann–Whitney nonparametric test for two independent samples for differences between BR and PL categories and types. Overall, BR products showed higher contents of total and saturates than PL items. When products were grouped for categories and types, items only differed for the content of total fats, saturates, total carbohydrates, proteins, and salt. No differences were instead found for energy and sugar contents among any of the categories. However, we did not find any consistency in the direction of results. These results could be useful for future education activities aimed to help consumers in making informed food choices.
Highlights
Food labels are one of the main tools used by industries to deliver information about their products
Concerning nutrition and health claims (NHC), the number of products with at least one nutrition claim or health claim was higher among branded products” (BR) products compared with PL items, except for fresh pasta in which PL prevailed on BR (n = 2 and 1, respectively) (Supplementary Table 1)
We compared the nutrition declaration of over 3,700 cereal-based food items, belonging to seven different food categories, to investigate whether BR and PL products differ in terms of nutritional quality, by retrieving information from the food label
Summary
Food labels are one of the main tools used by industries to deliver information about their products. The first class describes packaged food items of all food categories generally produced by small-medium food companies (i.e., copacker) but branded by the supermarket and sold exclusively in the supermarkets’ own stores These products, called “own label,” are considered a competitive alternative to the so-called “branded products,” which are produced by national and international food manufacturers and labeled with their own brand and distributed to the general trade [2]. PL products are constantly gaining market shares despite some signs of declining in the last years [3] They are not distributed around the world, being more diffused in Europe and less penetrated in the Asia Pacific [4]. Mostly in the past years, the association between the absence of a known brand and low price led to the perception of PL as products with lower nutritional quality compared with BR items [8]
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