The Importance of taste in experimental auctions: consumers’ valuation of calorie and sweetener labeling of soft drinks

A majority of purchases that consumers make are classified as repeat purchases. One of the main reasons why consumers make repeat food purchases is the food's taste. Therefore, we examined the importance of including taste testing in nonhypothetical experimental auctions. Specifically, we used two experiments to determine consumers’ willingness to pay for soft drinks labeled with different calorie and sweetener information. In Experiment 1, participants tasted the soft drinks prior to the bidding rounds. In Experiment 2, participants did not taste the soft drinks prior to the bidding rounds. Bidding behavior for the soft drinks was significantly different between Experiment 1 and Experiment 2. Results suggest that including taste testing in the design of experimental auctions is important to accurately capture consumers’ willingness to pay for foods that are purchased repeatedly. Results also imply that policies aimed at combating obesity by making the calorie content of foods more visible may not produce desired outcomes.     

Do firms leverage the FDA nutrient label rounding rules to generate favorable nutrition fact panels or health claims?

The increasing incidence of nutrition related health concerns has made food labeling an important policy issue. Previous work suggests the importance of communicating nutrition information to consumers through product packaging. This paper investigates the role of labeling guidelines, which allow the rounding of calorie and nutrient levels on nutrition fact panels and affects front of package claims. We examine ready-to-eat cereal products as a bundle of nutrient attributes, and estimate the likelihood and magnitude of the rounding of specific nutrients and calories. We find systematic rounding, both up and down, of several nutrients, which affects allowable health claims and may influence consumer product choice and health outcomes.     

Covid-19-tested food labels

While the transmission of virus SARS-CoV-2 via food is rare, some Chinese food retailers are considering a Covid-19-tested food label. However, how consumers may support such a label is unknown. We quantify Chinese consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for food carrying a Covid-19-tested label using an online choice experiment. We find that the WTPs for such a label are always positive for all food products considered. The amount of WTP depends on the entities authenticating the labels, country of origin of the food, and consumers’ socio-demographic status. Contrary to expectation, the knowledge on Covid-19 does not affect consumer preferences for the Covid-19-tested food labels. Our benefit and cost analysis suggests a possible large benefit of creating and administering a Covid-19-tested food label. This study provides insights for policymakers, global food manufacturers, and retailers to create marketing strategies to alleviate consumer food safety concerns associated with Covid-19.     

Implementing COOL: Comparative welfare effects of different labeling schemes

Country-of-origin labeling (COOL) is being implemented in different forms and degrees in the United States and other countries across the world. The first implementation of mandatory country of origin labeling (MCOOL) in the United States was for seafood in 2005. This is an example of partial MCOOL because it exempts the foodservice sector and excludes processed seafood from labeling. Using a conceptual framework, we analyze the welfare impacts of partial MCOOL when compared to no, voluntary, and total mandatory COOL, taking into account imperfect competition in the downstream markets, information asymmetry, and diversion of low-quality product to the unlabeled market. The model is general enough to apply to any incomplete regulation for which the perceived low-quality product is required to be labeled, such as the labeling of genetically modified food in the European Union. Our results show that when consumers have a strong enough preference for domestic relative to imported product, regulators can overestimate the gain in consumer welfare from partial mandatory labeling if they ignore the diversion of lower quality imports to the unlabeled sector. We show that if the preference for domestic product is large enough, total MCOOL benefits the home market the most overall, including domestic consumers and producers, but not the imperfectly competitive downstream agents. However, if total MCOOL is too costly to implement, partial MCOOL is the second-best solution, but only if consumers falsely believe the unlabeled product to be of higher quality than it truly is. Our results suggest more research is needed to determine the extent to which consumers value the information provided by MCOOL and to enable regulators to consider the welfare impact of diversion in evaluating incomplete mandatory labeling regulations.     

Consumer Self-Confidence in Wine Consumers: The Role of Knowledge-Based Factors

This study uses the Wine Self-Confidence Scale (WSCS) with a sample of 297 customers of ABC Fine Wine and Spirits, a Florida-based retailer, to examine aspects of self-confidence in wine purchasing. The results indicate that two knowledge-based self-confidence factors (information knowledge and persuasion knowledge) were predominant for these consumers. The study showed strong support for the WSCS, which was developed as a measure of self-confidence in wine buying by Olsen, Thompson, and Clarke (2003) and how these relate to reliance on personal experience.     

Consumer Attitudes Toward and Preferences for Food Standards of Identity

Abstract

Federal food standards of identity protect consumers from nutritional and economic fraud by establishing standardized names and characteristics for some products. Standards have been criticized for a variety of reasons, raising the possibility that standards may be harmful to the consumers' interests that they are designed to protect. The authors conducted focus groups to collect information on consumers' attitudes toward food standards and their perceived usefulness. Many participants believed that standards are useful and deemed standards to be more important for some types of products than others. Regulators can use the study findings to guide policy decisions on food standards.     

欧盟新化学品分类、标签和包装条例浅析

本文介绍了欧盟《物质和混合物分类、标签和包装条例》（（EC）No1272／2008）的形成背景和主要内容,探讨了中国企业的应对之道。     

The roles of attitude,subjective norm,and perceived behavioral control in the formation of consumers’ behavioral intentions to read menu labels in the restaurant industry

Increases in food-away-from-home purchases brought public awareness to policies for improving nutritional value of foods served at restaurants. As a result, offering choices to consumers that affect health and wellness has become a growing concern in the food industry and restaurants, as evidenced by provisions for nutritional labeling to guide consumers’ food purchasing decisions for healthy eating. This study pursues an empirical examination of the consumers’ behavior toward reading nutritional labeling at casual-dining restaurants. The study tests the conceptual framework of the proposed effects of constructs on consumers’ behavioral intentions. Findings indicate that the variable of attitude acts as a mediator in the relationship between subjective norm and behavioral intention. This study is meaningful to academia by offering insights into the relationship between consumers’ behavior and nutritional information in the context of restaurants and is beneficial to the restaurant industry by offering implications for establishing marketing strategies to improve consumers’ perceptions of menu items.