Designing a consumer friendly nutrition label

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate potential nutrition label formats in order to identify format characteristics that are acceptable to consumers and that will facilitate consumer use, understanding, interpretation, and application of the information provided on the label. Using three basic formats for presenting nutrition data on food labels (i.e., adjectival ratings, absolute measures, and percentage standard) alone and in all possible combinations yielded the seven potential label formats evaluated in this study. A supermarket intercept method was used to conduct 15-minute, face-to-face interviews of 309 food shoppers. The sample was primarily white, non-Hispanic, female high school graduates between the ages of 18 and 53 who had medium-high socioeconomic status. Study results revealed that (1) formats presenting data in the form of both absolute measures and percentage standard can substantially enhance the ability of consumers to locate, manipulate, and compare label data, and (2) adding benchmarks (i.e., daily reference values) to formats utilizing absolute measures can enhance consumers' abilities to interpret label information accurately and make appropriate dietary management decisions. Consumers identified those label formats having more, rather than less, information and those containing absolute measures with a benchmark and adjectival ratings as being most helpful. Based on the findings of this study, a label format that combines the features from the label formats that consumers thought were most helpful with the features that enable consumers to quickly and accurately use the information on a nutrient label is proposed. Although the findings of this study lend support to the recently mandated Nutrition Facts label and other continuing investigations, much research remains to be done. One future need is for controlled studies that replicate realistic shopping conditions.