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17 October 2006

Food Labels and Food Choices

For a communications-oriented person, food labels can become a channel to provide information that might influence a food choice. For a social marketer, food labels are one aspect of a larger place where dozens of food choices are made in the span of a few minutes. Consumer surveys and the few studies of actual purchasing behavior I have seen tend to focus on the relationship of the label to the food purchased, which would be fine if people went to the grocery or convenience store to purchase just that one item. Whether, and how to influence, the entire food shopping experience (what leaves the store in the bags) is another question.

Two out of five US adults say they have changed their eating habits to conform to the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) nutrition guidelines, while just over half claim to check food labels when choosing products for themselves or their families, revealed the Harris Interactive/Wall Street Journal Online survey...

[A] top concern for 83 percent of consumers when looking to labels for nutrition information was the fat content of a product. Some 76 percent said they look for calorie information, while 72 percent look for sugar content.

Nutritional value is checked for by 69 percent of survey respondents, salt content by 68 percent and carbohydrates by 60 percent. Fiber content is a concern for 56 percent of adults, while organic ingredients came in last at 26 percent.

When it came to parents choosing products for their children, sugar content, nutritional value and fat content were the main concerns. [Source: Food Navigator via The Morning Cup]

The article goes on to note that the FDA is considering changes to food labeling regulations to emphasize caloric content, make calories per serving easier to calculate and set a daily percent value for trans fats (so that they can be labeled as well).

So who can come up with a shopping cart calculator that gives a picture of the overall food choices made in the store and not just focus on a few 'good food - bad food' decisions?  I wonder if anyone knows how may choices are actually made with a food label versus all food purchase decisions made during a shopping visit?

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Posted at 06:37 AM in Audience Research |

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