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Recent interest in nutrition has provoked the use of this subject in the labelling and marketing of food products. Current legislation and guidelines pertaining to this area are examined. The importance of nutritional labelling and claims, in supporting efforts by health education staff in promoting nutrition awareness, is described.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how Turkish consumers’ attitudes toward grammatical styles of the same nutrition message affect persuasiveness; to determine the consumers’ ability to comply with the nutrition messages and to know possible health benefits of them; and to examine nutrient claims on food packages with information that will help consumers to make healthy diet choices.

A questionnaire, comprising eight different grammatical styles of a nutrition message for each kind of food or food products, is applied to randomly to 207 subjects. Another questionnaire is designed including nutritional messages. Subjects (n = 200) are asked about their frequency of compliance and how this behavior is beneficial to health. In total, 5,200 food products are scanned for nutrition labels on packages in four hypermarkets. All the nutrient claims found are recorded as well as the wording.

There are significant effects of grammatical style on persuasiveness, except for meat products. Subjects report that rhetorical question using “how about” in the third message provokes them most. High proportions of subjects have heard of the written nutrition recommendations before. However subjects’ frequencies of compliance with recommendations are low. The relation between compliance and knowledge scores for message 1, 2, 3 and 4 are significant (p < 0.01 and p < 0.05). Of 5,200 foods scanned, 266 foods are recorded for nutrient claims. Fat claims are the most frequent type of nutrient claims; 71 foods have numerical claims; 179 foods have adjectival claims and 16 have both claims.

There have not been any studies on frequency of application of nutrition labeling, consumer attitudes and knowledge of nutrition messages regarding Turkey.

Nutrition and health claims are used widely on food labels and are known to influence food choice, however research has found that consumer perceptions of such claims are mixed. The study aimed to explore the perceptions, use and perceived value of nutrition and health claims among consumers and investigate barriers for the use of claims in guiding food choice.

An online cross-sectional survey conducted in May-July 2019 collected information on participant demographics, reported use and perceptions of nutrition and health claims, and barriers to the use of claims for 150 Australian consumers.

While the majority (73.5%) of respondents were aware of nutrition and health claims on food labels and were largely confident in interpreting claims, 29% of respondents “often” or “always” used claims to guide food choices. More than one-quarter (27.3%) of respondents found nutrition and health claims “not very useful” or “not at all useful” for guiding food choice, while only 12.7% perceived claims as “very trustworthy” or “extremely trustworthy”. The ingredients list and nutrition information panel were the preferred sources of on-pack nutrition information for guiding food choice.

Findings suggest there remains a role for nutrition and health claims to help consumers make healthier dietary decisions however, it appears that trust in claims and regulations must firstly be addressed. There is a need to develop strategies to increase the perceived trustworthiness of these claims, including clearer promotion of the current regulatory requirements for making nutrition and health claims.

This paper aims to compare the use of front-of-pack nutrition claims made on 32,257 food labels launched in 2009 in the US and the EU.

Information from Mintel's Global New Product Database was analyzed, for 25,417 products launched in the EU and 6,840 in the US. The hypothesis was that “products launched in the US and EU have a different frequency of front-of-pack nutrition claims”. Using inferential statistics, significant differences (two-tailed Z-tests) in the number of claims are explored and compared to differences in legislation standards and consumer preferences.

The initial analysis revealed that there were six significant differences between the presence of the seven health and nutrition claims across 16 product categories in the US and the EU. Further analysis of the 16 product categories revealed a range of significant differences between the frequency of US and EU claims.

The emerging relevance of front-of-pack nutrition labeling as a marketing tool makes such differences pertinent. This paper marks the first systematic comparison of the use of claims between the US and EU.

This study aims to investigate whether nutrition knowledge impacts on the credibility and purchase behaviour of foodstuffs that make health claims.

The UCD Food and Health Survey is a monthly online survey, which began in November 2008. In March 2009, participants were asked a series of questions pertaining to nutrition and health claims and 665 completed questionnaires were included for analysis. Participants' level of nutrition knowledge was measured using a combined and modified version of Parmenter and Wardle's General Nutrition Knowledge Questionnaire (1999) and that of Hawkes and Nowak (1998). Perceived credibility was gauged using a semantic differential scale and the questionnaire was designed to also assess participants' purchasing behaviour of functional foods.

Females scored significantly higher than males for nutrition knowledge (p=0.004) but there was no significant difference in nutrition knowledge between age groups. “Reduces feelings of hunger” was deemed the most credible claim. With the exception of “This yogurt drink will strengthen your bones and teeth”, there was no difference in credibility between high and low nutrition knowledge groups. Health claims were more credible to participants when found on yogurt and breakfast cereal when compared with pasta and chocolate. Products claiming to reduce cholesterol were purchased more in the previous month than any of the other products and the same product was purchased statistically more often by those participants in the older age group.

A limitation of this study was that the panel were younger and more formally educated than the general public. They were also more likely to be female. The gender bias may be because the survey was food and health‐based and therefore may not have appealed to men as a more generally themed survey might have done. The results of this study should be considered therefore with this limitation in mind.

People do not consider products with health claims to be a uniform category of foodstuffs and participants' level of nutrition knowledge does not have a significant impact on their behaviour towards products carrying health claims.

Knowledge of nutrition does not impact on people's reactions to products with health claims and different foods demonstrate different levels of credibility as carriers for health claims.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the purchase intention of functional food is influenced by the perception of carrier-ingredient fit, that is, to what extent the carrier product and functional ingredient are intuitively perceived to be matched, and how such influence is moderated by consumers’ prior nutrition knowledge and provided health claim.

Through two phases of experimental studies on 30 hypothetical functional foods, this paper analyzed the relationship between perceived carrier-ingredient fit and purchase intention which were reported by participants with different nutrition knowledge levels and in conditions that differed in the content of health claim.

Phase 1 (n=62) found that the positive influence of perceived fit on purchase intention of functional products was moderated by one’s prior nutrition knowledge; compared to those knowledgeable in food/nutrition fields, consumers with less knowledge relied more heavily on the perceived carrier-ingredient fit when making purchase decision. The results of study 2 Phase 2 (n=93) revealed that the perceived fit was more important to predict purchase intention in the condition without health claim. A further analysis revealed that health claim increased the purchase intention particularly for functional foods receiving poor perceived carrier-ingredient fit.

For innovative functional foods, the product development and market penetration may be benefit from fine-grained segmentation and positioning strategies that are based on the understanding of interaction between intuitive perception and cognitive knowledge.

The present work highlights consumers’ perception of the carrier-perception fit, interacting with nutrition knowledge and health claim, as a critical factor determining the acceptance of functional foods.

Following the standard practice of using nutrition claims to denote food functionality, this study empirically explores Chinese consumers’ willingness-to-pay for functional processed meat products by using three nutrition claims (namely “increased calcium,” “containing omega-3”, and “reduced salt”) made on pork sausages. It also aims to outline the typical characteristics of Chinese consumer segments based on preferences.

A choice-based choice experiment is utilized to investigate Chinese consumers’ valuation on attributes of interest regarding functional sausage products. First-hand data was collected in the two cities of Xi'an and Beijing.

There are market potentials for domestic and/or imported functional processed meat products among Chinese consumers. Nutrition claims made on pork sausages are appealing to Chinese consumers, and therefore, monetarily rewarded by them. Being imported from a more developed country of origin could both positively and negatively impact consumers’ WTP for nutrition claims made on pork sausages. Furthermore, specific functional modification strategies should be taken into account when addressing different segments of the Chinese market. In addition, regional impacts between Xi'an and Beijing are implied in terms of consumers’ valuation for functional pork sausages.

Limitations in the current study are mainly two folds. First, the WTP estimation magnitudes are subject to a hypothetical bias by using a stated preference approach. Second, this study only focuses on pork sausages to explore consumers’ perceptions and selects three nutrition claims among many other relevant options.

Implications are provided for meat marketers and for Chinese official food policymakers, such that promoting meat products with a nutrition claim is an attractive marketing strategy for foreign food manufacturers in China, and more reformulated meat products with better nutritional compositions should be allowed in the Chinese market.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this research is the first to fill in the literature blank on investigating the consumers’ valuation for functional meat in the emerging market of China. Because when taking Chinese consumers as a target market and evaluating their perceptions of food quality-related labeling and certifications, the existing literature is mainly limited to topics of product safety, organic/green products, and geographical origins. However, nutrition claims, as marketable credence attributes that associate closely to the main characteristics of the functional food products, have been explored to a much lesser extent among Chinese consumers.

Milk and yoghurt provide essential sources of nutrition throughout the life cycle in the Irish diet. Health claims on dairy product labels were popular in the 1980s, and since the introduction of the nutrition and health claims (NHC) Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 in 2007, many new regulated claims have been used to communicate product benefits. Meanwhile, COVID-19 and the Farm to Fork strategy have heightened consumer awareness of health issues. All of these factors have contributed to a change in our food environment and interest in health. In addition, the European Commission is working to introduce a legislative proposal on nutrient profiles (NP) to restrict the use of NHC on foods that are high in salt, fat or sugar. This qualitative study aims to research knowledge on adults’ attitudes, perceptions and behaviour towards NHC on dairy products.

The study used a thematic analysis using transcripts from a series of discussion groups, attended by adults (n = 24). The participants also completed an introductory questionnaire.

The study noted positive attitudes towards dairy protein. This attitude was common across age, gender or life stage. There were misperceptions regarding yoghurt composition and health benefits. There were negative perceptions of low-fat nutrition claims on yoghurt, which led to a preference for full-fat dairy products. This requires further insight and research.

Participants from a wider socio-demographic group could have broadened the research limits of this project.

These findings will interest policymakers, regulators, dieticians and the food industry.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the packaged food market in Brazil by examining the use of nutrition and health claims and marketing techniques, as well as the different levels of industrial food processing in relation to product category, nutrition information and price.

A survey was conducted on the labels of pre-packed foods and non-alcoholic beverages marketed in a home-shopping website in Brazil.

The authors showed that the use of nutrition and health claims on packaged foods in Brazil is widespread and varied across different food categories. Marketing techniques were also prevalent, and techniques emphasising general health, well-being or naturalness were the most frequent type used. Overall, products carrying nutrition and health claims and/or using marketing techniques had lower content of fat and higher content of fibre. However, the high prevalence of these strategies in ultra-processed foods is alarming. The presence of health claims and use of marketing techniques was not found to be an effective modifier of the three price measures. However, processed and ultra-processed foods were more expensive than unprocessed foods when considering price per energy and price per 100 g or mL.

These results indicate that there are clear opportunities to improve the packaged food environment in supermarkets. It is important to highlight the need to develop public policies to address these issues, including restriction of the promotion and advertising of unhealthy foods and beverages and use of warning labels.

This study evaluated and compared the abilities of women (n = 50) between the ages of 25 and 45 residing in the UK to locate and manipulate information on nutrition labels prepared in accordance with US regulations (i.e. Nutrition Facts labels) and those prepared in accordance with the EU Directive and UK Food Labelling Regulations 1996. It also assessed their ability to assess the accuracy of nutrient content claims. Study findings indicate that the women could locate and manipulate information on both labels equally well. However, they were significantly more able to assess nutrient content claims using the Nutrition Facts label. The research findings suggest EU labelling changes that may facilitate consumer use of labels in making dietary planning decisions.