Project

Nutri-Score: whether, why, how and for whom this food label works.

Code
3G041122
Duration
01 January 2022 → 31 December 2025
Funding
Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO)
Promotor-spokesperson
Research disciplines
  • Social sciences
    • Consumer behaviour
    • Marketing channels and retailing
    • Marketing communications
Keywords
food label healthy food Nutri-score
 
Project description

This project focuses on the Nutri-Score, the front-of-pack nutrition label considered as most promising to stimulate healthy food choices in the grocery store. The goal of this project is threefold. First, we investigate whether, why and for whom the Nutri-Score works. We expect the Nutri-Score to work, but possibly in different ways for different people. On the one hand, exposure to the Nutri-Score might automatically activate health goals, which seems more likely the more health-concerned people are. On the other hand, the colors of the Nutri-Score could activate unconscious approach-avoidance reactions, which more likely occur the less health-concerned people are. Second, we investigate whether the Nutri-Score may, unintendedly, backfire and increase consumption since it increases perceptions of appropriate serving sizes, serves as a justification cue and, hence, reduces guilt feelings. Ironically, the more health-concerned people are, the more they are expected to fall prey to this backfire effect. Third, we examine whether the predicted Nutri-Score effects on consumer choices also hold for actual food purchases in a grocery shopping context. As the industry has reformulated several of their products as a response to the introduction of the Nutri-Score, we control for any product reformulations over time. A better insight in the Nutri-Score is important to feed the on-going discussion to make it mandatory in all EU countries and to inform the development of future labels.