Do Positive Nutrition Shelf Labels Affect Consumer Behavior? Findings from a Field Experiment with Scanner Data

Berning, Joshua; Chouinard, Hayley H.; McCluskey, Jill J.

doi:10.1093/ajae/aaq104

Cited by 53 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Menu changes were introduced without any substantial public relations campaign, avoiding a potentially negative consumer response if consumers perceived that healthy items may not taste as good or be as fun (Berning, Couinard, and McCluskey 2011) or if consumers perceived that the use of healthy defaults threatened their freedom, resulting in consumers intentionally opting out of the healthy defaults in order to counteract this perceived threat (Pham, Mandel, and Morales 2016). This allowed consumers to become accustomed to the new offerings before the changes were deliberately brought to the public’s attention.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Healthy Defaults in Walt Disney World Restaurants to Improve Nutritional Choices

Peters

Beck

Lande

et al. 2016

Journal of the Association for Consumer Research

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A retrospective study of kids’ meals purchased at Walt Disney World was conducted to determine acceptance rates for healthy sides and beverages. Purchase data from all 145 Walt Disney World restaurants were analyzed using a log-linear model and a Poisson regression. Across all restaurants, 47.9% and 66.3% of guests accepted healthy default sides and beverages, respectively. Acceptance rates of sides and beverages were higher at quick-service restaurants (49.4% and 67.8%, respectively) compared to table-service restaurants (40.3% and 45.6%, respectively). The healthy defaults reduced calories (21.4%), fat (43.9%), and sodium (43.4%) for kids’ meal sides and beverages. This study contributes by examining the use of kids’ meal healthy defaults in quick-service and table-service restaurant formats at the world’s largest theme park, a previously unstudied setting, and by providing the largest ever healthy default data set. The results suggest that healthy defaults can shift food and beverage selection patterns toward healthier options.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Healthy Defaults in Walt Disney World Restaurants to Improve Nutritional Choices

Peters

Beck

Lande

et al. 2016

Journal of the Association for Consumer Research

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“…They find no discernible impact on unit sales of nutritious v. less nutritious products in the treatment store relative to a control store. Berning et al (24) labelled popcorn products for low fat or low energy content in five grocery stores in the San Francisco Bay area of California. They find, contrary to expectation, that unit sales for nutritious popcorn decreased while unit sales of less nutritious popcorn increased, but the results fall short of conventional levels of statistical significance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of a supermarket nutrition rating system on purchases of nutritious and less nutritious foods

Cawley

Sweeney

Sobal

et al. 2014

Public Health Nutr.

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Objective: The current study examines the impact of a nutrition rating system on consumers' food purchases in supermarkets. Design: Aggregate sales data for 102 categories of food (over 60 000 brands) on a weekly basis for 2005-2007 from a supermarket chain of over 150 stores are analysed. Change in weekly sales of nutritious and less nutritious foods, after the introduction of a nutrition rating system on store shelves, is calculated, controlling for seasonality and time trends in sales. Setting: One hundred and sixty-eight supermarket stores in the north-east USA, from January 2005 to December 2007. Subjects: Consumers purchasing goods at the supermarket chain during the study period. Results: After the introduction of the nutrition ratings, overall weekly food sales declined by an average of 3637 units per category (95 % CI -5961, -1313; P < 0·01). Sales of less nutritious foods fell by 8·31 % (95 % CI -13·50, -2·80 %; P = 0·004), while sales of nutritious foods did not change significantly (P = 0·21); as a result, the percentage of food purchases rated as nutritious rose by 1·39 % (95 % CI 0·58, 2·20 %; P < 0·01). The decrease in sales of less nutritious foods was greatest in the categories of canned meat and fish, soda pop, bakery and canned vegetables. Conclusions: The introduction of the nutrition ratings led shoppers to buy a more nutritious mix of products. Interestingly, it did so by reducing purchases of less nutritious foods rather than by increasing purchases of nutritious foods. In evaluating nutrition information systems, researchers should focus on the entire market basket, not just sales of nutritious foods.

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“…Moorman, Ferraro, and Huber (2012) find that some food manufacturers decreased their nutritional quality due to NFP regulations, and Mohr, Lichtenstein, and Janiszewski (2012) detect that firms manipulated serving size to make the information displayed on NFPs less salient. Although the recent revisions of the information provided on NFPs incorporate some of these findings, consumers state that they prefer simple FOP nutrition labels (Berning, Chouinard, and McCluskey 2011;Becker et al 2015). Consumers also appear willing to pay for the customization of information to help inform their choices (Balcombe et al 2015).…”

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confidence: 99%

Consumer and Strategic Firm Response to Nutrition Shelf Labels

Villas-Boas¹,

Kiesel²,

Berning

et al. 2020

American J Agri Economics

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The display of nutrition facts is mandatory on virtually all packaged foods sold in the United States. Yet manufacturers and retailers add their own claims to differentiate their products and capture consumers' attention at point of sale. We implement experimental nutrition claims on shelf labels in a retail setting and test how consumers react to the display of these labels that express information reported on the Nutrition Facts Panel in a different format. We hypothesize that our labels either shift demand for the highlighted healthier products uniformly or trigger more complex demand rotations. Our estimated heterogeneous labeling effects suggest that consumers process nutrition information differently depending on which and how many claims are displayed and prefer products labeled with a single claim overall. When we simultaneously consider demand and supply responses under three price setting behaviors (competitive pricing, Bertrand‐Nash pricing, and monopoly pricing), we find that consumer surplus and overall welfare is highest when our labels display multiple nutrient claims and retailers are able to adjust prices across the entire product category. Firms' profits are highest when single nutrient claims are displayed, however. We conclude that firms with market power have little incentive to voluntarily display nutrition claims that maximize welfare.

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Do Positive Nutrition Shelf Labels Affect Consumer Behavior? Findings from a Field Experiment with Scanner Data

Cited by 53 publications

References 14 publications

Using Healthy Defaults in Walt Disney World Restaurants to Improve Nutritional Choices

Using Healthy Defaults in Walt Disney World Restaurants to Improve Nutritional Choices

The impact of a supermarket nutrition rating system on purchases of nutritious and less nutritious foods

Consumer and Strategic Firm Response to Nutrition Shelf Labels

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