Labeling of Food Products on the B&H Market and Consumer Behavior Towards Nutrition and Health Information of the Product

Abstract

Abstract Bosnia and Herzegovina is currently undergoing a process that will establish the standards and implementation of a new approach to food safety. The process emphasises the quality of information delivered to consumers, which is part of the new approach on quality and food saftey. Therefore, it is important to continue the successful communication with consumers. The Agency for Food Safety and all the other parties involved in the process of the food safety systems are required to adhere to the law and implement the laws and regulations, such as food labeling, which is now the responsibility of the food industry. The aim of this paper is to investigate the extent to which these laws and the regulations are implemented concerning the labeling of food products as well as what type of information is printed on the declarations in the B&H market. We also investigated the behavior of consumers towards food labeling, particularly in relation to nutritional information and health claims. The study included reviews of the declarations from three groups of food products. Random surveys of 208 consumers examined their attitudes towards the information described in the declaration. It was found that the product labels were in accordance with the standards in most cases, however, the declaration is often not visible and/or translated into appropriate languages. The results show that the 43% of consumers review the declaration, and that most of them (62%) pay attention to the shelf life. Only 16% read the nutritional information and 27% the health claims. There were statistically significant differences (ANOVA, Duncan's post-hoc test p