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This pilot study for a larger research project aims to quantify and categorise elements of food label information and establishes an indicative physical relationship between mandatory and other information thereby articulating the relative balance between information intended to inform healthy dietary choices and that intended to perform other functions such as aiding purchase decisions.

The methodology employs quantitative content analysis performed on a number of different canned food labels (n=9).

Findings indicate the amount of available space on labels devoted to mandatory information ranged between 17 and 31 per cent, whilst the amount allocated to commercial information ranged between 18 and 45 per cent. Unoccupied space varies between 32 and 54 per cent. This indicates there is an imbalance between mandatory and commercial information, with the weighting in favour of the latter.

The small sample size precludes generalization.

An extended version of this research could influence government and corporate policy in establishing a balance between the prominence given to different categories of label information, favouring that which is more “health positive”. Alternately, information could be presented in a larger format, thereby assisting a wider range of consumers to make healthy and informed dietary choices: both outcomes have positive health implications for the population. Another outcome is the formal classification of label information elements thereby enabling clearer comparisons to be made between consumers' food label interactions.

This is the first time content analysis has been conducted on food labels. The paper is also unique in proposing a formal taxonomy for food label information. It has value for those working on policy issues.

This paper aims to present results from a research that analyzed the quality of labels available in the Serbian food market and consumers’ attitudes toward food labels.

A total of 899 food labels have been analyzed in relation to the presence of legally required information, their readability to average consumer and presence of nutritional/health claims and/or nutritional information. In parallel, 400 respondents were interviewed in the survey of consumers’ attitudes regarding labels.

Results revealed that 38.2 per cent of food products hold labels that are not fully readable to average consumers. Regarding basic label information, 11 per cent of foods have missing information in terms of series/lot identification. The majority of the products (87.4 per cent) have only basic nutritional information with 4.6 per cent of products holding nutritional claims. Consumers with active sport activities showed higher awareness of nutritional information. There were no statistically significant differences between smokers and non-smokers regarding their attitudes toward nutritional information. Age and education play a significant role in ranking nutritional facts. The most important nutritional information is fat content, followed by sugar and vitamins.

The nature of the study did not allow conclusions regarding causal relationship between food products and consumers as well as if nutritional information affects consumers’ choices and purchasing patronage.

The findings of this study are worthy, as they report the Serbian consumers’ understanding of labels and nutritional information as well as the status food labels sold in the Serbian market.

The globally recognised link between diet and health needs to be communicated to consumers to facilitate healthy food choices. Thus, this paper aims to determine South African (SA) metropolitan consumers' opinions and beliefs about the food-health link, as well as their opinions and use of health information on food labels.

A cross-sectional study using fieldworker-administered questionnaires was conducted. Using stratified randomised sampling, 1,997 respondents were recruited. The data were weighted to represent the metropolitan SA adult population (n=10,695,000).

Practically significantly more respondents agreed than disagreed there is a food-health link and that health messages on food labels are supported by scientific research. Respondents' opinions on health information on food labels were mostly positive, as confirmed by the average opinions for the different ethnic groups. The results identified a lack of interest, time and price concerns, and habitual purchasing as reasons for not reading food labels. Health-concerned respondents also considered labels as important health information sources.

Consumer education on the food-health link and the use of health information on food labels should address the deficiencies identified through the opinions and use of food labels by these respondents.

Representative results of SA metropolitan consumers in this study are significant since third world countries are burdened by various diseases and former studies only used limited-sized non-probability samples which could not be generalised.

Nutrition labelling of food products has received considerable attention in the marketing literature due to increasing consumer interest in health and diet issues. Nutrition labelling of food products is intended to enable informed consumer choices and stimulate the consumption and production of healthful products. Reviews nutrition labelling research, organises the literature, and discusses implications for policy makers, managers and researchers. Analysis of the literature suggests heterogeneous utilisation and comprehension of on‐pack nutrition information by consumers. The effectiveness of nutrition labelling depends also on the organisation and presentation of the information, implying the importance of regulatory issues. The topic is rich in public and marketing policy implications and provides several opportunities for further research.

Rates of diseases caused by poor diet have seen no reduction in recent years. In this scenario, nutritional information labels and health claims could play a decisive role in modifying product attitudes and purchase intention (consequently, eating habits). In this frame, the first objective is to analyze the role of three antecedents on attitudes toward nutritional labels and credibility from health claims. These three starting antecedents are as follows: psychological characteristics of the consumer associated with eating disorders, body image attitudes and affective reactions (pleasure and arousal). Second, this paper aims to analyze if both elements (attitudes toward nutritional labels and credibility from health claims) improve (or not) food product attitudes and then, its purchase intention.

The sample comprised 300 young people between 18 and 25 years old. They provided their opinion about a healthy product by completing a structured and personal questionnaire after inspecting the packaging. Path analysis with partial least squares (PLS) was carried out to test the hypotheses stated.

First, psychological characteristics associated with eating disorders (self-concept and self-esteem) have a positive significant influence on body image attitudes. Second, attitudes toward their body image have a great effect on the perception that these consumers have about the information provided by healthy food packaging. Insofar as those whose attitudes toward their body image is “damaged” seek in the nutritional label indications that make them feel calm understanding that the food they are going to buy is not harmful to their health. Moreover, credibility from health claims improves positive attitudes toward the nutritional label. On the contrary, those consumers with higher punctuations in body image assigned lower values to those items concerning nutritional information and health claims in the packaging. Third, if attitudes to nutritional information improve, then product attitudes improve too. Fourth, if product attitudes improve, then purchase intention improves too. So, food product managers should be aware of the need to improve product attitudes by working on the packaging (label and claim) to improve purchase intention.

First, although previous literature has investigated individual psychological characteristics related to food disorders in the health area, the study of these specific individual psychological characteristics (ineffectiveness, perfectionism, interpersonal distrust, interceptive awareness, maturity fears), is under-researched in the marketing discipline. Second, to date, different authors have investigated how important the use of credibility from health claims in packaging can be in terms of increasing product attitudes and purchase intention, as well as the development of positive attitudes toward nutritional information on the label. However, the joint study of both information sources in the packaging (credibility from health claims and attitudes toward nutritional labels) remains under-investigated.

This research examines how the design of the online energy label can be improved to stimulate consumer choice of energy-efficient household products in Web stores. Based on general evaluability theory, the authors propose new label formats that aim to improve the evaluability of the label information for consumers and test their influence during two distinct stages in the online decision-making process: consideration set formation and final choice.

Two large-scale controlled online experiments are conducted with over 10,000 consumers in 10 European countries. The experiments test label alternatives in simulated online store environments, mimicking the two distinct decision stages, for four product categories to enhance generalizability. The data are analyzed using random-intercept linear and logistic regression models to account for their multi-level structure.

The results show that the impact of the online energy label on consumers’ online decision-making depends on both the label format and the decision stage (consideration vs choice), but in a different way than expected. The findings reveal that the current online energy label is significantly outperformed by a label that provides reference information by incorporating the scale range. This alternative label is particularly effective in the consideration set formation stage, and among consumers who consider energy efficiency a relatively unimportant choice criterion.

Online energy labels encourage consumers to consider and choose more energy-efficient products, especially if scale range information is included. The present results stress the importance of presenting this information early on in the online decision process. They also show that, particularly at this early stage and particularly for consumers who find energy efficiency a relatively unimportant choice criterion, label format matters.

The present findings provide important input for policymakers in the context of the ongoing revision of the EU energy label. They also help online retailers make decisions about when and how to present product information on their websites.

This study contributes to the literature on product labelling by examining the effects of relatively unexplored types of reference information in two distinct stages of the consumer decision-making process. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to test the effectiveness of the online energy label.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influences of consumer perceptions of labelled information and sensory attributes on consumers’ intention to buy fresh milk.

An experiment was conducted on 117 consumers in a lab at a university. After closely inspecting the labels’ information and tasting two types of milk, participants were asked to fill in a questionnaire, using the direct interview method. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling were applied to analyse the data.

The results show that products’ labelled information and the sensory perceptions increase the buying intention of both ultra-high temperature treated fresh milk (UFM) and pasteurised fresh milk (PFM). The sensory perceptions of PFM can mediate the relationship between products’ labels and consumer buying intentions, but this relationship is not true for UFM. According to our results, nutritional facts and taking responsibility for one’s health are the keys to fresh milk commercialisation in terms of higher relative weights and commonness.

Although the sensory aspects of milk have been rigorously evaluated in the food science literature, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, few studies have focussed on the sensory perceptions of fresh milk incorporating process categories (UFM and PFM) and their mediating effect between labelled information and buying intention in the social sciences. The study is pioneering in that it investigates the perceptions of sensory attributes affecting consumer purchasing decisions for fresh milk in an emerging market.

The purpose of this work is to examine the range of information consumers seek on labels of quality products and construct an indicative check‐list of various types of informational labeling as well as to examine whether quality of information demanded segregates the market‐creating segments to be targeted by firms.

An extensive interdisciplinary literature review based on findings in marketing, economics, geography and sociology reveals the often neglected range of factors forcing consumers to place importance on regionally denominated food and drink. The European Union (EU) has responded to growing consumer trends towards regional and traditional food and established special schemes regulating the production of such food and drink. A survey of 640 consumers of quality wine carried out within the framework of an EU‐funded program provides the empirical material of this work.

The study records the range of informational labeling sought by consumers as well as critical factors influencing their consuming behavior. Informational labeling linking product to place ranks top among a wide set of information sought on labels. A Poisson count data model reveals that consumers’ willingness to acquire information from labels is influenced by various socio‐economic characteristics and, in general, high demand for information is associated with higher expenditures for wine.

Informational labeling is a significant step for place revalorization and cultural relocalization and provides significant prospects to enterprises marketing local culture. Research should be extended to the examination of other products and the comparative assessment of the findings.

Allergy information on food labels is crucial to individuals with food allergies. The purpose of this paper is to investigate what information consumers are concerned with as well as improving the allergen information on the product labels.

A questionnaire was developed based on previous studies and was administered to citizens in South Korea. Descriptive analysis and analysis of variance were conducted to find significances of important information when purchasing and improvement needed on the labels in relation to allergy knowledge.

The results indicated that respondents were concerned about allergy information and general information regarding the basic value of food and also food safety. In addition, this study found knowledge of food allergies is not related to consideration of allergy information on labels.

This study measured consumers’ perceptions of the current food allergy labeling when purchasing food products. This study concluded improvements were needed in order to deliver allergy information in a clear manner. Such as font size, shape, and color should be implemented together in order to communicate effectively with allergic consumers.

When a subordinate's performance is assessed by a superior in a work situation, whether or not he or she performed well is not the only issue. There is also concern as to whether he or she should be held responsible for accomplishments or failures. The assessment of responsibility has been termed ‘an attribution’ (Green and Mitchell, 1979).