If it’s healthy, it’s tasty and expensive: Effects of nutritional labels on price and taste expectations

Abstract

Studies on the impact of nutritional information and labeling rarely consider lay beliefs regarding a food’s healthiness, taste, and affordability. If lay beliefs such as “healthy food is expensive” and “unhealthy food is tasty” exist, then nutritional information may have unintended consequences. This study elicited health, taste, and price beliefs of 60 food items in three countries—the USA, China, and Korea—and we studied how these beliefs and purchase intentions change in response to exogenous health information. We found lay beliefs are not always true and identical across countries, and they depend on prior beliefs and information. When neutral or negative exogenous information about healthfulness was provided, USA and Korea consumers tend to consider healthier foods more expensive, but this was not the case with China consumers. Interestingly, despite the commonly asserted “tasty = unhealthy” lay belief, we tended to find positive relationships between perceived health and taste. We demonstrated the interconnectedness of beliefs by simulating the impacts of health information on purchase intentions under different assumptions about the relationship between taste, health, and affordability expectations.