Effectiveness of the Nutri-Score and other front-of-pack nutrition labels across Brazilian and French consumers: food choices, understanding and perception

• Autor(a) principal: Chambon, Maylis Amelia
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional do FGV (FGV Repositório Digital)
• Texto Completo: https://hdl.handle.net/10438/34595
• topic: Purchase intention; Consumer preferences; FMCG; Food marketing; Front-of-pack labels; Obesity; Nutrition labels; International marketing; Intenção de compra; Preferências do consumidor; Marketing de alimentos; Rótulos frontais de embalagens; Obesidade; Rótulos nutricionais; Marketing internacional; Administração de empresas; Comportamento do consumidor; Marketing; Hábitos alimentares; Alimentos - Composição - Tabelas; Embalagens

Since 1975, global overweight and obesity (OAO) levels have risen to epidemic proportions. In response, governments, industry professionals and consumers have increasingly looked towards front-of-pack (FOP) nutrition labels to help consumers differentiate products and make healthier purchasing decisions. In this study, the effectiveness of the Nutri-Score, Reference Intake and Magnifying Glass label were examined amongst French and Brazilian consumers. Six fictional products within two food categories (yogurts and cakes) were considered by 115 respondents (76 French and 79 Brazilian respectively) and the effectiveness of the FOP labels was measured in terms of impact on consumers’ food choices, objective understanding and perception. All three FOP labels increased the selection for the product with the greatest nutritional quality and helped consumers better rank products according to nutritional quality compared to the no-label situation. While the Nutri-Score was not the best-performing label, it was never the worst-performing label for any task or category. This suggests that the Nutri-Score may potentially be a more effective tool for influencing consumers’ purchasing decisions and objective understanding than the Magnifying Glass label. Regarding the perception of the FOP labels, French and Brazilian respondents strongly indicated their preference for the Nutri-Score, asserting that it was the label that allowed them to better choose healthy products as well as to understand and spot quickly. Finally, following the analysis of the survey results, the managerial implications of its findings were considered and potential avenues for future research were discussed.