EMBARGO: Tuesday 31 January 2012, 10:30 CET
Brussels, 31 January 2012: Nutrition labels are widespread in Europe, but consumers lack the attention and motivation to use them. This was the main outcome reported in the FLABEL (Food Labelling to Advance Better Education for Life) final conference in November 2011. Now, the final results of this three-and-a-half-year project will be presented in a webinar on 31 January 2012 by FLABEL Scientific Advisor, Professor Klaus G. Grunert.
Nutrition labels are a potentially useful tool for enabling consumers to make healthier choices about food, but scientific insights into how these labels are used in real-life shopping situations are limited. The FLABEL project found that consumers can understand the information presented in nutrition labels, and use it to make healthful choices. When given information on key nutrients (fat, saturated fat, sugar, and salt) and energy for a variety of products and asked to rank the foods according to healthfulness, the majority of consumers were able to do this correctly.
A major result of the FLABEL research is that lack of motivation and attention are significant barriers when it comes to the effect of nutrition labelling on consumer choice. Professor Grunert explains that "consumers need to be motivated to engage with nutrition information – for instance, by having a health goal – in order to pay attention to nutrition labels”.
Lack of attention similarly lessens the impact of nutrition labels on the healthfulness of food choices. In a mock grocery store experiment, the eye movements of shoppers were tracked as they chose foods for their shopping baskets. The data showed that average attention to nutrition labels was between just 25 and 100 milliseconds – too brief a period for the information to be processed.
Motivation can improve consumers’ attention to nutrition information by encouraging them to look longer at nutrition labels. However, the most promising option for increasing consumers’ attention to, and use of, nutrition labels, is to provide information on key nutrients and energy on the front of the pack in a consistent way. "Complementing this information with a health logo can also increase attention to, and use of, the information, especially when the consumer is under time pressure”, says Grunert. "The use of colour-coding can increase attention and use in certain situations, although the effects are not strong.”
Consumers in the FLABEL project said they prefer and would like to use more complex labels that provide complete information. The data also suggest that liking depends on consumers’ previous exposure, or familiarity, with the label.
The results of the project show that the presence of nutrition information on food labels in Europe is very high. In an investigation of over 37,000 products across five product categories in the EU 27 plus Turkey, the majority (85%) of food products had nutrition information on the back of the pack and nearly half (48%) had nutrition information on the front of the pack. The five product categories were sweet biscuits, breakfast cereals, chilled pre-packed ready meals, carbonated soft drinks, and yoghurts.
The most widespread labelling scheme for the back of the pack was the nutrition table, found on 84% of products, while the Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA) label and nutrition claims were the most widespread front-of-pack schemes, both present on a quarter of all products.
The full results, including their policy implications, are available via webinar at http://flabel.org/en/News/FLABEL-final-webinar/. The webinar can be accessed free of charge, but you are required to log in.
Notes to editors
About FLABEL
FLABEL - Food Labelling to Advance Better Education for Life - received research funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (Contract n° 211905). See www.flabel.org
The FLABEL consortium is comprised of 13 partners from 8 countries, including academic experts, retailers, and SME-representatives.
Professor Klaus G. Grunert
Professor Klaus G. Grunert Klaus Grunert is Professor of Marketing at Aarhus University in Denmark, and founder and director of MAPP - Center for Research on Customer Relations in the Food Sector, and FLABEL Scientific Advisor.
Prof. Grunert has done extensive research in the areas of consumer quality perception and food choice, and insights into consumer behaviour. As director of MAPP, he has carried out more than 50 collaboration projects including several pan-European studies. He is the author of 12 books, over 80 academic papers in international refereed journals and numerous other publications.
Klaus Grunert is a past president of the European Marketing Academy, holds a part-time position as Professor of Fisheries Marketing at the University of Tromsø in Norway and is Professor of the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management.
About the European Food Information Council (EUFIC):
The European Food Information Council (EUFIC) is a non-profit organisation which provides science-based information on food safety & quality and health & nutrition to the media, health and nutrition professionals and educators, in a way that promotes consumer understanding. EUFIC receives funding from companies in the European Food and Drink sector, and from the European Commission on a project basis.
For more information about EUFIC see www.eufic.org.
For more media information please contact Adrian Giordani, European Food Information Council (EUFIC)
Email: [email protected]
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Nutrition labelling: 85% penetration across Europe, finds EU study
Brussels, 30 April 2009 – today the EU project FLABEL (Food Labelling to Advance Better Education for Life, www.flabel.org/) announces its first research results. An audit of the penetration of nutrition information recorded data from more than 37,000 products from 5 food and beverage product categories in retailers across the EU 27 Member States and Turkey.
Main findings
On average 85% of the products audited contained nutrition information on the back of pack, ranging from 70% for Cyprus and Slovenia to more than 95% for Ireland, UK and The Netherlands. Front-of-pack nutrition information was found on average on 48% of all products, reaching as high as 82% in the UK.
By far the most wide-spread format across all countries was the tabular or linear listing of nutrient composition on the back of packs, stating either the big 4 (calories, protein, carbohydrates, fat) or the big 8 (big 4 plus sugar, saturated fat, fibre and sodium).
Overall, breakfast cereals was the category with the highest penetration of nutrition information, displaying nutrition information back of pack on 94% of products and front of pack on 70% of products.
Nutrition claims were on average on 25% of the products audited, ranging from 12% in Estonia to 37% in Ireland and Portugal. Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA) were on average on 25% of products, ranging from 2% in Turkey to 63% in the UK. Nutrition claims and GDAs were the most prevalent forms of nutrition information on the front-of-pack.
Methodology
In each country, the audits were conducted in three types of retail store: a retailer within the top 5 in terms of market share, a consumer cooperative or national retailer and a discounter.
More than 50 different retail stores co-operated with the study. All products within the following categories were examined: sweet biscuits, breakfast cereals, ready meals, carbonated soft drinks and yoghurts. A data collection grid was designed to record where nutrition information occurred on the pack (back-of-pack vs. elsewhere), in which format it was given (e.g.nutrition table), which nutrients were stated and whether nutrition or health claims were present.
Next steps
Nutrition labelling, whilst voluntary in Europe except when a nutrition or health claim is made, was found on a large majority of products audited and its presence seems higher than reported previously. These findings provide a solid base for subsequent FLABEL studies involving attention, reading, liking, understanding and use by consumers of different nutrition labelling formats.
Click here to listen to the webinar presentation of these FLABEL project results.
About FLABEL
FLABEL receives research funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (Contract n° 211905). Its objective is to understand how nutrition information on food labels affects dietary choices and consumer habits. This project commenced August 2008, and will end in July 2011.
More information can be found at www.flabel.org
Enquiries? Dr. Laura Fernández Celemín, European Food Information Council (EUFIC)
Email: [email protected]