The Value to Consumers of Health Labeling Statements on Breakfast Foods and Cereals

Food manufacturers have an incentive to include nutrient content claims, health claims, or other types of labeling statements on foods if they believe that consumers will be willing to pay more for products with specific attributes. We estimated semi-log hedonic price regressions for five breakfast bar and cereal product categories using Nielsen Scantrack scanner data for 2004 and found that labeling statements for these foods are often associated with substantially higher prices, reflecting higher implicit value to consumers. The largest effects were associated with “carb-conscious” carbohydrate labeling (reflecting the time period of the data), followed by fat and sugar content labeling statements.