Food labeling systems and Consumers’ Decision making

Creating a conducive environment for healthy eating can be achieved by empowering consumers with the necessary information to make informed nutritional choices. As a result, nutritional labeling has become increasingly imperative in assisting individuals in their daily purchasing decisions. Although research suggests that front-of-pack labeling is an effective means of informing consumers about healthier food options, no single labeling system has proven successful in this regard. The absence of a definitive labeling system ideal for all purposes makes it challenging to determine the most effective one. This uncertainty has led to a gap in the literature, which provided an opportunity for further research to examine the various labels and related concepts and factors. This dissertation aimed to fill the gap in the literature by studying two popular front-of-pack labeling systems: The Health Star Rating system and Nutri-Score. Four research chapters have been included to achieve this objective. The study commenced with a systematic review of the Health Star Rating label in the literature. The next chapters examined the impact of front-of-pack nutrition labels on consumers' food choices and preferences. The research investigated how the presence or absence of a label influences consumer decision-making and how individual differences play a role in interacting with these nutrition labels. Finally, the performance of the nutrition labels is examined in the context of existing beliefs and attitudes. This last study provided a fresh perspective on the effect of Nutri-Score on food choices by exploring its impact on consumers’ prior beliefs, intuitive thinking, analytical processing, and judgment of healthiness. In conclusion, the body of literature reviewed and the experimental data gathered in this thesis suggest that food labels are effective at influencing consumer choice; however, due to this, special caution must be exercised due to the risk that they could be used more as a marketing tool than as a genuine aid to informed choice.