Can traffic light nutritional labels induce healthier consumer choices? Experimental evidence from a developing country

Abstract

In a context of increasing health problems related to bad dietary habits in developing countries, simplified nutritional label formats may be a promising policy alternative. The aim of this study is to assess whether the multiple traffic light (MTL) system can improve the nutritional quality of consumer decisions. We conducted a selection experiment in Peru, where participants were offered a choice between three alternatives in two different food categories (crackers and beverages). Individuals were randomly assigned products with MTL labels on them. Our results reveal that exposure to MTL labels significantly increases the probability of avoiding the least healthy options and of choosing the healthiest items among the alternatives provided. These effects are large in magnitude and seem to be driven by individuals that are female, report average or above average dietary habits, and lack basic nutritional knowledge. However, our findings also suggest that the effectiveness of MTL labels may be sensitive to the specific characteristics of the set of options provided. These findings contribute to the emerging experimental literature on MTL labels in two ways. First, we provide evidence that this system can be effective in inducing consumers to make healthier choices in real‐life situations. Second, we explore which individuals are more likely to benefit from exposure to MTL labels, as well as potential limitations to their effectiveness. Overall, our results provide new insights on how to assess the issue of bad nutrition in emerging economies.

Are Front-of-Pack Nutrition Labels Influencing Food Choices and Purchases, Diet Quality, and Modeled Health Outcomes? A Narrative Review of Four Systems

“…The selection process retrieved a total of 64 original publications, that reported 65 experimental studies, addressing the selected FOPNL and selected outcomes, as displayed on Table 2 [ 12 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 ,…”

“…When considering studies published from mid-2018, 47 new set of data were identified and analyzed [ 12 , 20 , 23 , 24 , 27 , 29 , 30 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 44 , 46 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 55 , 56 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 , 74 , 78 , 79 , 81 ]. Among those, 23 compared two of the four FOPNL of interest or more.…”

“…For example, in a sample of Peruvian students, WS impacted the choice among 3 sugar-sweetened beverages with the healthiest version being chosen more often (+27.4%) and the less healthy version less often (−25.7%) as compared to no label group. But WS had no effect on purchase/selection of crackers of varying nutritional quality [ 23 ]. Differences in the effect of Nutri-Score were also seen between pizzas, cakes, or breakfast cereals in laboratory-type studies [ 32 , 63 , 83 ] while, in a real-life study across the whole supermarket food offer, the Nutri-Score was found to have different impacts, according to categories.…”

Food consumption values and the influence of physical activity

“…In addition to caloric content, other researches (Boncinelli et al, 2017;Carels et al, 2006Carels et al, , 2007Defago et al, 2020) suggest that factors, such as the perceived fat content of food, come under the influence of the decision to place food in a healthy or dietary category.…”

“…In addition to the functional objective itself, consumers maintain a wide variety of eating goals, such as symbolic or hedonic ones, as described by Bublitz et al (2013). Thus, the topic of healthy foods and their consumption has received significant attention from scholars (Defago et al , 2020; Goetzke et al , 2014; Hur and Jang, 2015; Joseph et al , 2011; Wang, 2019).…”