Product labelling for healthier choices
Summary
Task 5.5 is devoted to fostering healthier choices through product labeling, encompassing two sub-tasks focused on developing and implementing effective labeling strategies. These initiatives aim to extend knowledge on alcohol warning labels and to assess the impact of Front of Pack Labelling (FOPL) on consumer behavior, diet quality, and health outcomes. This task collectively seeks to leverage labeling as a tool for promoting informed food and beverage choices among consumers.
Alcohol warning labelling
The aim of the subtask is to extend the knowledge base on alcohol warning labels and to develop a toolbox for emerging regulations of warning labels in the European alcohol market:
- Review and synthesize the recent evidence on warning labels and map existing or proposed regulations of warning labels.
- Explore and compare alcohol consumers’ knowledge of alcohol-related harms and risk perceptions, so as to tailor specific content of warning labels to various consumer groups across Europe.
- Explore effectiveness of various formats and contents of alcohol warning labels on consumers’ attention, knowledge, and risk perception across jurisdictions and consumer segments that differ with regard to alcohol marketing. Develop and pilot-test knowledge-based warning labels designed according to established health communication principles.
- Assess the possible impact of new and various alcohol warnings (cancer, other health outcomes, social problems) on improving consumers’ ability to make informed choices.
- Assess the influence of commercial actors and NGOs in the decision-making process of regulating alcohol warning labels.
Front of Pack Labelling (FOPL) EU start up, implementation, use
The task will assess the magnitude of the effect of FoPL on purchasing behavior and subsequent improvement on overall diets and health, through:
- The development of a robust and common methodological framework, to assess and monitor the impact of public health interventions like FoP labels, on consumers’ behaviour, people’s diet and health, nutritional quality of food purchases and dietary intake, as well as product reformulation and innovation. The method will involve reviews of the theoretical frameworks used to support FoPL and designs assessing the effectiveness of FoPLs as well as a ranking of the studies performed to provide guidelines for FoPL research. The FoPLs included will be those for which published studies exist, and can be anticipated to include multiple traffic lights, Nutri-Score, Reference Intakes and Warning labels.
- The collect of evidence through pilot studies in interested countries to monitor or evaluate the impact of Nutri-Score and other selected FoPL already implemented, on dietary behaviours and promoting healthier food preferences. The level of consumers’ exposure to the FoPL will be evaluated with records of food products purchases and questionnaires about food frequency and socio-demographics will be administered to a panel of consumers.
- The collect of evidence through pilot studies to support the deployment of Nutri-Score and/or other selected FoPL (depending of the efficacy data collected in the previous task) in interested countries. Consumers’ purchases in online experimental supermarkets will be observed and discussed through the socioeconomically heterogeneity of consumers.