Price rather than nutrition information the main influencer of consumer food purchasing behaviour in South Africa: A qualitative study

In South Africa there has been a paucity of data on food and nutrition labelling since the publication of the new food‐labelling legislation. This study aimed to explore whether the nutrition information on food products influences consumer purchasing behaviour; reasons for reading or ignoring nutrition information on labels, and to investigate expectations regarding food / nutrition labelling. Nine focus‐group discussions were held with adult consumers (N=67) in Cape Town, South Africa. Food price was sometimes the only consideration when selecting food products, irrespective of quality and nutritional value. When buying products for the first time, consumers were more inclined to read the nutrition information compared to habitual purchases or buying known brands. The list of ingredients, nutrient content claims and specific health endorsement logos were considered important. Reasons for reading nutrition information were mainly to assess the nutritional value or health properties, to avoid certain ingredients/allergens and to determine quality. Consumers struggled to understand the information on labels, specifically the nutrition information table. A lack of time or interest, price concerns and trust in labelling information also emerged as reasons why consumers ignore the nutrition information. There is a need for simpler food labelling, more graphics, and less complex terminology, information overload and quantitative information. It is recommended that a standardised front‐of‐package labelling scheme and a single health endorsement logo for South Africa be considered. More should be done to educate consumers on utilising the information on food labels correctly, in order for them to make healthier food choices.     

Evaluation of food labelling usefulness for consumers

Food labelling is a means of communication between food business operators and consumers, representing an important factor in consumer purchasing decisions. The enforcement of the new food labelling policy is aimed to improve food safety and public health through the mandatory indication of information and nutritional values. To understand the usefulness of the information provided for consumers, a survey was carried out to assess the efficacy of the information presented in food labelling. Principal component analysis was performed to obtain a smaller number of uncorrelated factors regarding the usefulness of food labelling. Results showed consumers usually do not read food labels due to lack of time and excessive information. Additionally, food labelling was observed to be more useful for specific consumer groups, such as, athletes, consumers with health conditions or consumers concerned with a healthy lifestyle. The results of the present study highlight the need of information campaigns by public health authorities to show the importance and advantages of reading food labels as well as the development of essential information which should be quickly and clearly seen and understood by consumers.     

Consumers’ perceptions of GM‐free labelled foods: A sensory experiment

As of today, the views of European consumers and policy makers on GM foods are still divided. While only few GM labelled foods (‘does contain’) have entered the market, GM‐free labelling (‘does not contain’) is increasingly introduced in many EU member states. This study aims to examine whether GM‐free labelling affects consumers’ sensory profiling, emotional conceptualizations and overall liking. Based on a within‐subjects experimental design, 126 Belgian subjects evaluated GM‐free and nonlabelled samples of three food products: yogurt, traditional biscuit (‘speculoos’) and crisps. The results show that overall liking did not differ significantly according to label (no vs. GM‐free), regardless of participants’ knowledge of, or attitude towards GMOs. Furthermore, regarding the impact of GM‐free labelling on consumers’ subjective taste perceptions and emotional profiling, few significant differences were reported for crisps and traditional biscuit. Regarding the latter, less positive and more negative emotional terms have been assigned to the GM‐free labelled sample. The findings of this study should be viewed in the context of the stringent EU mandatory GM food labelling policy, which led to an increase of GM‐free rather than GM labels. Future research is needed to further underpin these findings and examine differently framed labels in various settings.     

Green decisions: demographics and consumer understanding of environmental labels

This research examined the demographic profiles of Australian green consumers in relation to their satisfaction of environmental labelling. It examined consumers’ understanding of labelling and empirically investigated the association of demographic profile of consumers with their attitudes towards such labels. The results indicated that some of the demographic variables were significant, which is largely consistent with earlier findings by other researchers in this area. Label dissatisfaction was higher in the older and middle age respondents. However, some respondents disagreed that labels were accurate while commenting that labels were easy to understand. The key issue arising from the findings is that in order to provide perception of accuracy in labels, it is an option to use Type I or Type III labelling on products. These labels are, arguably, more credible because they are endorsed by third party labelling experts. This would come at a cost and for green products that use third party labelling, they will also have to bear in mind to keep the prices competitive.     

Use and knowledge of food labels of shoppers in a city with a high proportion of heart disease

This study aimed to assess consumers’ use and understanding of food labelling and the improvements that they would like. Systematically selected supermarket shoppers were interviewed using a questionnaire. Data showed that the use of food labels was low. Among those who read food labels, at least occasionally, use‐by‐date was the most reported information looked at. Understanding of the content of five nutrients on a standard food label provided was poor. Although a high proportion of participants claimed to have no problem with the current format, those who had problems wanted food labels that were ‘bigger’, ‘highlighted’ or written in ‘plain English’. These results suggest that before improved food labels can have an impact on consumers’ food choice, strategies to encourage shoppers to read them are needed.     

An exploration of the influence of food labels on South African consumers' purchasing behaviour

New labelling legislation in South Africa is expected to help consumers sustain a healthy lifestyle through the food choices they make. This study was undertaken to explore a sample of South African consumers' reasons for reading labels and the influence of food labels on their purchasing behaviour. The study was conducted using focus group discussions held with label reading consumers in Potchefstroom in the North West Province of South Africa. Findings suggested that these participants read food labels to assess the nutritional value, personal benefits, health attributes and product quality. Various purchasing influences were also identified, suggesting that consumers are in some cases motivated by food labels to purchase a product, or may be unresponsive to the label or indifferent by being aware of the information but not reluctant to buy a product that does not indicate essential information. Several indirect consideration factors such as situational factors (e.g. family), extrinsic (e.g. price) and intrinsic (e.g. taste) may contribute to the purchasing behaviour of some consumers. These findings are useful to propose a perceptual model of the way in which food labels influence purchasing behaviour of a sample of South African consumers and explain the role of food labels in the purchasing decision of label‐reading consumers. This information is especially significant for new packaging and labelling initiatives as it highlights the reasons why label‐reading South African consumers read label information.     

Consumer‐generated media and product labelling: designed in California,assembled in China

Product country‐of‐origin labelling is an important extrinsic cue for consumers about a product's attributes. In a globalized world where products components and parts originate from multiple countries, companies have resorted to inventive country‐of‐origin labelling. The objective then of this paper is to better understand consumers' evaluation of products that have inventive country‐of‐origin labelling (i.e. Designed in California, Assembled in China). Exploratory qualitative data were collected from consumer‐generated media (36 weblogs) using Nielsen's Research BlogPulse tool. A grounded theory analysis revealed that four key themes emerged from the data that related to confusion about the labelling strategy, strong symbolic and emotional ties to country‐of‐origin, and the importance of country‐of‐origin as a quality signal.     

Usage and understanding of food labels among Lebanese shoppers

Food labelling is a population‐based approach to health education that enables consumers to make better choices by providing information at the point of purchase. This study aimed to assess the food label usage and understanding and factors affecting them among Lebanese supermarket shoppers. A cross‐sectional study was conducted among 748 supermarket shoppers in Lebanon between December 2013 and February 2014 using a pre‐coded structured questionnaire. About 29.3 of the shoppers check the food labels every time they buy a food product and 15.7% never do it. Shoppers who do not read food labels identified the long time needed in reading them as top reason (34.9%), while 9.8% answered that they do not understand them. About 55.4%of the surveyed shoppers read the food labels at the supermarkets. About 44.4% of participants agreed that reading food labels is very important, while 30.3% read the food labels depending on the purchased product. Then 19.4% of participants complained that food labels contain too much information and 13.8% claimed that food labels are difficult to understand. About 60.3% think that food labels have helped people in changing their eating habits, while health and nutrition claims affected the product selection among 59.8% of participants. The food label knowledge score average was 63.1%. Older, obese shoppers having kids, suffering from chronic illness or allergies, following a specific diet and residing in big cities scored significantly (p < .05) higher. The low knowledge score necessitates the nutrition education on how to read and use the food labels. Groceries would be the perfect place to reach out mass consumers.     

The heuristic‐systemic model of sustainability stewardship: facilitating sustainability values,beliefs and practices with corporate social responsibility drives and eco‐labels/indices

Using a framework from the heuristic‐systematic model and the value‐belief‐norm (VBN) theory, this study tests consumers’ systematic conjunction of sustainability values, beliefs and practices, and examines the heuristic influence of sustainability stewardship on the consumers’ VBN framework. In this study, sustainability stewardship within the textile and apparel industry refers to approaches that can facilitate the corporate social responsible (CSR) drive and eco‐labels/indices in corporate sustainability practices. Data from 239 US college students were analyzed using a structural equation modeling method. The findings confirmed that only the CSR drive is significant as heuristic sustainability stewardship in facilitating the consumer's systematic process in the VBN framework, while eco‐labels/indices do not moderate consumers’ sustainable practices. In particular, the current CSR drives in the textile and apparel industry strengthen consumers’ values in the altruistic, self‐enhancement and biospheric dimensions, and, further, lead to the sustainability practices of eco‐citizenship, green consumption and green product purchasing, through the mediation of proenvironmental belief. Comprehending these dynamics can empower marketers and researchers to devise pertinent ideas and practical applications of sustainability stewardship to academia and to the textiles and apparel industry.     

Limits to labels: The role of eco‐labels in the assessment of product sustainability and routes to sustainable consumption

There has been rapid development in the methods, data and protocols for the assessment of product sustainability over the past decade. Notwithstanding this welcome development, the widespread provision of sustainable products has not occurred. Moreover, indications from a myriad of surveys suggest that consumers remain full of intent to purchase sustainably, yet these stated preferences have not translated into a widespread uptake in the purchase of more sustainable products. Heightened interest in climate change over the past couple of years has led to rising calls for labelling to allow consumers to differentiate between more or less sustainable options. Such calls apparently assume that if consumers are presented with appropriate label information their purchases will change and more sustainable purchasing will result. For many observers these calls bring more than a ring of déjà vu as the failures (or at least unfulfilled expectations) of environmental labelling schemes of the past spring to mind. A review and assessment of eco‐labelling schemes is presented. Discussion focuses on the history, successes and failures of such schemes, and consideration of their potential role (or not) in future shifts towards sustainable consumption. Behavioural, social practice, institutional and infrastructure factors are considered and labelling, legislation and other options are explored. Conclusions are drawn regarding potential routes to sustainable consumption, with particular reference to eco‐labels.     

Low‐literate consumers' use of clothing labels amidst personal and product related challenges

Low‐literate consumers experience various challenges in the marketplace. This quantitative study focused on low‐literate female consumers' use of clothing labels amidst personal and product‐related challenges in the marketplace. An interviewer‐administered questionnaire was used among black African female consumers (n = 450) with literacy levels ranging from Grades 5 to 8 (on average, 11–14 years old), residing in the Emfuleni Local Municipality area, Gauteng, South Africa. Personal challenges experienced involved reading and numeracy skills, as well as concrete and pictographic thinking. Although respondents indicated that they read and understand clothing labels, results revealed problems experienced when attempting to use the information provided. Their numeracy skills were average and related abstract thinking skills were fair. Product‐related challenges were related to the format of labels, care‐label knowledge and evaluation of clothing quality. Respondents' preference for symbolic and graphic presentation of size format provided evidence of pictographic thinking. Care label understanding was poor, and clothing products were evaluated concretely. Some of the older respondents were inclined to follow the peripheral route of elaboration when reading clothing‐label information. We conclude that low‐literate consumers' use of clothing label information can improve if provided in a format that they can read and understand.     

Sodium content in foods: Brazilian consumers’ opinions,subjective knowledge and purchase intent

This study attempted to gain insights on Brazilian consumers’ subjective knowledge of sodium content in processed and homemade foods and their purchase intent for products with reduced‐sodium content. A questionnaire was distributed to 409 consumers selected by convenience quota sampling. We found that Brazilian consumers were concerned about the amount of salt (sodium chloride) in the products they consumed, regardless of educational levels, income, age, lifestyles, or health conditions. However, they still considered their consumption to be above WHO‐recommended limits and had little subjective knowledge about the term ‘sodium’. While processed products were considered the main contributors of high‐sodium intake, participants were not concerned about addition of salt at the table and salt in homemade food. The majority of respondents rarely read the sodium content on food labels; however, men and older individuals were more likely to read label information on sodium content. Products with reduced sodium were found to have market appeal, which justifies investments in research to develop these products. Therefore, in addition to the efforts to reduce sodium in the processed‐food industry, it is necessary to promote awareness about the importance of food labelling, especially sodium content, and the need to reduce salt in homemade food and additions during meals.     

How green is your packaging—A comparative international study of cues consumers use to recognize environmentally friendly packaging

Consumers have grown increasingly aware of the impact of packaging on the environment. Therefore, interest has grown in more environmentally friendly packaging, but we wondered how consumers recognize ‘green’ as distinct from ‘grey’ when evaluating packaging. We asked over 3,000 respondents from Germany, France and the United States how they recognize environmentally friendly packaging. To solicit responses that we may not have anticipated, we used an open‐ended format, which we then followed with a closed‐ended format so that we could compare the two sets of responses. Not surprisingly, in both sets of responses, we found labelling to be the attribute consumers rely upon most, as well as evidence of misleading labels. We also found consumers in Germany and the United States relied on information on the packaging and named searching for information as one of their preferred ways to decide whether packaging is environmentally friendly. French consumers seemed less trusting of published information and more trusting of the look and feel, especially the material, of the package. Our results point to the importance of cultural influences in the acquisition of perceptual cues by the consumer.     

Understanding consumers' perspectives on food labelling in India

This study aims at identifying the factors influencing consumers' perception on food labelling and its impact on food purchase decision making, through personal interviews of 631 respondents using a structured questionnaire. To analyse the consumers' perceptions on food labelling, factor analysis has been carried out to identify the underlying dimensions among a set of food labelling attributes using the principal component analysis. Based on factor analysis, four sets of components/factors have emerged, that is, (i) serving method; (ii) quality and nutrition; (iii) production and storage; and (iv) product identification, which explain 66.271% of the variance. Logit regression analysis indicates that among the socio‐demographic indicators, the estimated coefficients for gender, education, income and location of residence are statistically significant. Similarly, information on quality and nutrition, production and storage processes, and basic information of the product is found to be significant, implying that these factors are more likely to influence the use of food labels in making informed purchase decisions by the consumers. The findings of the study give practical insights on food labelling issues for the food processors and policy makers.     

Eco‐labelling and the Trade‐Environment Debate

In this paper we consider the effectiveness of eco‐labels as a substitute for alternative, but trade‐restrictive, environmental policies. Specifically, while there are concerns that eco‐labelling requirements increase the cost of international trade, due to their potential for misuse as technical trade barriers, little attention has been given to the environmental benefits of eco‐labelling. We show that incentive problems inherent in eco‐labelling policies make it a very weak tool of environmental policy. Despite this, we argue that eco‐labelling schemes may remain popular, owing to the lack of alternative WTO compliant environmental policies. We also use this framework to consider the economic and political conflicts facing the EU with regard to its policies on genetically modified organisms.     

A conceptual framework for analyzing consumers' food label preferences: An exploratory study of sustainability labels in France,Quebec, Spain and the US

In a qualitative study of 375 consumers in France, Quebec, Spain and the US, respondents are asked to choose between pairs of actual food labels and to describe the reason(s) for their choice. The food labels included sustainability labels (eco‐labels, Fair Trade, origin) as well as product attribute (e.g. quality, kosher) and health/nutrition labels. Respondents' reasons were coded in the original language using the same coding system across all four nations to examine their preferences for label message, design and source. We also examined the role of consumers' values, beliefs and experiences on their label choices. The coding system was drawn from a review of theoretical and empirical literature and provides a conceptual framework we call the Label Consumer Interaction model for evaluating consumers' food label preferences. Although this is case study, the results point to substantial differences across nations in terms of preferred labels, as well as the rationale for their choice in terms of attributes of the labels and consumer characteristics.     

Humanising Business Through Ethical Labelling: Progress and Paradoxes in the UK

Labelling schemes are practical arrangements aimed at making ‘ethical’ products widely available and visible. They are crucial to expanded development of ethical markets and hence to the addition of moral dimensions to the normally amoral behaviour linking consumers and retail and production businesses. The study reported here attempts to assess the contribution of UK ethical, social and environmental certification and labelling initiatives to ‘sustainable’ consumption and production. The research sought to assess the overall potential of initiatives to inject human values into the supply-distribution chains, through a qualitative survey of 15 of the 26 main UK initiatives: in social justice, animal welfare and environmental sustainability from the agriculture, food processing, timber, aquaculture, textiles and personal care sectors. By analysing the basic characteristics and concepts of these labels and investigating the emergence of labelling initiatives, we assess whether labels help add an ethical dimension, or whether, in some respects, they also reduce such missions to the technical management of adding only another ‘utility’ to a product. The analysis assesses whether the gradual ‘mainstreaming’ of ethical initiatives such as ‘Fairtrade’ risks subsuming ethical goals within business participants’ competitive and profit-oriented logics. However, the contrasting perspectives revealed between rival labelling initiatives show that the scope and functions of labelling projects go beyond the manifest ones of information communication between consumers and producer and actually introduce elements of socio-political regulation. These are essential for more sustainable and ethical business practices and are an integral part of any humanisation of business involvement.     

Effects of institutions on ecological attitudes and behaviour of consumers in a developing Asian country: the case of the Philippines

This study examines the effects of institutions emanating from the social environment on ecologically sustainable consumer behaviour in a developing country context. Drawing on the behavioural perspective model of consumer choice and institutional theory, this study argues that the regulative, normative and cognitive dimensions of the institutional environment play critical roles in shaping the pro‐environmental attitudes called eco‐attitudes of consumers. In turn, eco‐attitudes positively influence the eco‐behaviour of consumers. The structural equation modelling of data from a survey of 1045 consumers from the Philippines shows the significant and positive effects of the regulatory, normative and cognitive dimensions of the institutional environment on the eco‐attitudes of consumers, which in turn have strong positive influence on eco‐behaviour. The findings about the partial mediating role of eco‐attitudes offer a more nuanced explanation on how institutions explain the eco‐behaviour of consumers which is a topic that is less understood especially in a developing country context. The study highlights the theoretical, methodological, policy and future research implications of the findings.