Who Reads Food Labels? Selected Predictors of Consumer Interest in Front-of-Package and Back-of-Package Labels during and after the Purchase.

Paweł Bryła

doi:10.3390/nu12092605

Abstract

The paper aims to identify selected predictors of food label use to extend our knowledge about consumer behavior related to food purchases. Two types of information were examined: front-of-package (FOP) and back-of-package (BOP), and two contexts of reading labels were distinguished: during shopping and at home. Various types of potential predictors were tested, including demographic (e.g., age, gender, household size, place of living), socioeconomic (e.g., education, professional activity, income), behavioral (e.g., purchasing certain types of products), and psychographic (e.g., importance attached to various types of information) criteria. The survey was conducted with the use of the CAWI (Computer-Assisted Web Interviews) methodology in a sample of 1051 Polish consumers. Quota sampling was applied based on sex, age, education, place of living (urban vs. rural), and region. Descriptive statistics, t-tests, ANOVAs, Pearson correlation coefficients, and multiple and retrograde step regressions were applied. In retrograde step regression models, only one predictor (self-rated knowledge about nutrition healthiness) turned out to be significant for all four measures of label reading. The remaining predictors were specific to selected measures of reading labels. The importance of the information about the content of fat and that about the health effects of consuming a food product were significant predictors of three types of food label use. This study confirms the necessity to investigate reading labels in fine-grained models, adapted to different types of labels and different contexts of reading. Our results show that demographic or socioeconomic variables are not significant predictors of reading food labels for a large group of Polish consumers.

Highlights

In previous research, food label use was associated with consumer characteristics, product type, and purchasing context
Healthy eating, and nutritional value of food, perceived vulnerability for diet-related diseases, nutrition knowledge, numeracy, and gender were positively associated with the frequency of food label use [16]
A series of ANOVAs demonstrated that age did not differentiate any measure of reading labels (Table 2)

Summary

Introduction

Food label use was associated with consumer characteristics, product type, and purchasing context. Healthy eating, and nutritional value of food, perceived vulnerability for diet-related diseases, nutrition knowledge, numeracy, and gender were positively associated with the frequency of food label use [16]. Consumer label use increased the average Healthy Eating Index These improvements differed across label information types that were used. Among nutritional panels, serving sizes, nutrient content claims, a list of ingredients, and health claims, the use of health claims on food labels provided the highest level of improvement in diet quality [24]. The paper aims to identify selected predictors of reading food labels with the distinction of the label type (FOP and BOP), and the context of food label use (during shopping and afterward, at home). Two main reading contexts (in the shop and at home) based on a survey in a large, representative, nation-wide sample of consumers

Materials and Methods

Results

Discussion