Charo Hodgkins

Penetration of nutrition information on food labels across the EU-27 plus Turkey

Objectives:The European Union (EU)-funded project Food Labelling to Advance Better Education for Life (FLABEL) aims to understand how nutrition information on food labels affects consumers’ dietary choices and shopping behaviour. The first phase of this study consisted of assessing the penetration of nutrition labelling and related information on various food products in all 27 EU Member States and Turkey.Methods:In each country, food products were audited in three different types of retailers to cover as many different products as possible within five food and beverage categories: sweet biscuits, breakfast cereals, pre-packed chilled ready meals, carbonated soft drinks and yoghurts.Results:More than 37 000 products were audited in a total of 84 retail stores. On average, 85% of the products contained back-of-pack (BOP) nutrition labelling or related information (from 70% in Slovenia to 97% in Ireland), versus 48% for front-of-pack (FOP) information (from 24% in Turkey to 82% in the UK). The most widespread format was the BOP tabular or linear listing of nutrition content. Guideline daily amounts labelling was the most prevalent form of FOP information, showing an average penetration of 25% across all products audited. Among categories, breakfast cereals showed the highest penetration of nutrition-related information, with 94% BOP penetration and 70% FOP penetration.Conclusions:Nutrition labelling and related information was found on a large majority of products audited. These findings provide the basis for subsequent phases of FLABEL involving attention, reading, liking, understanding and use by consumers of different nutrition labelling formats.

Usage of Plant Food Supplements across Six European Countries: Findings from the PlantLIBRA Consumer Survey

Background The popularity of botanical products is on the rise in Europe, with consumers using them to complement their diets or to maintain health, and products are taken in many different forms (e.g. teas, juices, herbal medicinal products, plant food supplements (PFS)). However there is a scarcity of data on the usage of such products at European level. Objective To provide an overview of the characteristics and usage patterns of PFS consumers in six European countries. Design Data on PFS usage were collected in a cross-sectional, retrospective survey of PFS consumers using a bespoke frequency of PFS usage questionnaire. Subjects/setting A total sample of 2359 adult PFS consumers from Finland, Germany, Italy, Romania, Spain and the United Kingdom. Data analyses Descriptive analyses were conducted, with all data stratified by gender, age, and country. Absolute frequencies, percentages and 95% confidence intervals are reported. Results Overall, an estimated 18.8% of screened survey respondents used at least one PFS. Characteristics of PFS consumers included being older, well-educated, never having smoked and self-reporting health status as “good or very good”. Across countries, 491 different botanicals were identified in the PFS products used, with Ginkgo biloba (Ginkgo), Oenothera biennis (Evening primrose) and Cynara scolymus (Artichoke) being most frequently reported; the most popular dose forms were capsules and pills/tablets. Most consumers used one product and half of all users took single-botanical products. Some results varied across countries. Conclusions The PlantLIBRA consumer survey is unique in reporting on usage patterns of PFS consumers in six European countries. The survey highlights the complexity of measuring the intake of such products, particularly at pan-European level. Incorporating measures of the intake of botanicals in national dietary surveys would provide much-needed data for comprehensive risk and benefit assessments at the European level.

The importance of harmonizing food composition data across Europe

Objective:To examine the role of food composition data in Europe in four sectors, namely health, trade regulation and legislation, agriculture and the environment.Results:The need for further harmonization of data across Europe is clearly identified and evidenced from a number of previous successful European collaborations.Conclusions:Data on the nutritional composition of foods are essential for a broad spectrum of activities, including public health nutrition, research, the food industry and government policy development and implementation. With the expansion of the European Union and the concomitant increase in cross border trade and cooperation harmonizing food composition data becomes a more important issue than ever. Harmonization is not solely a technical issue, but also involves creating durable and sustainable structures to maintain the viability of the data. These are some of the issues currently being addressed by the European Food Information Resource Network of Excellence.

Guiding healthier food choice: systematic comparison of four front-of-pack labelling systems and their effect on judgements of product healthiness

Different front-of-pack (FOP) labelling systems have been developed in Europe by industry and organisations concerned with health promotion. A study (n 2068) was performed to establish the extent to which inclusion of the most prevalent FOP systems--guideline daily amounts (GDA), traffic lights (TL), GDA+TL hybrid (HYB) and health logos (HL)--impact consumer perceptions of healthiness over and above the provision of a FOP basic label (BL) containing numerical nutritional information alone. The design included within- and between-subjects factors. The within-subjects factors were: food (pizzas, yogurts and biscuits), healthiness of the food (high health, medium health and low health) and the repeated measurements under BL and test FOP label conditions. The between-subjects factors were: the system (GDA, TL, GDA+TL hybrid, HL), portion size (typical portion size and a 50% reduction of a typical portion) and country (the UK, Germany, Poland and Turkey). Although the FOP systems tested did result in small improvements for objective understanding under some conditions, there was little difference between the provision of an FOP label containing basic numerical nutritional information alone or between the various systems. Thus, any structured and legible presentation of key nutrient and energy information on the FOP label is sufficient to enable consumers to detect a healthier alternative within a food category when provided with foods that have distinctly different levels of healthiness. Future research should focus on developing greater understanding of the psychological and contextual factors that impact motivation and the opportunity to use the various FOP systems in real-world shopping settings.

Reference amounts utilised in front of package nutrition labelling; impact on product healthfulness evaluations

Background/Objectives:The research question addressed in this paper is how different reference amounts utilised in front of package nutrition labelling influence evaluation of product healthfulness.Subjects/Methods:A total of 13 117 participants from six European countries (Germany, UK, Spain, France, Poland and Sweden) were recruited via online panels. A mixed between/within-subject factorial design was employed with food (biscuits, sandwiches, yogurts), healthfulness and presence of Guideline Daily Amounts as within-subjects factors and reference amount (‘per 100 g’, ‘typical portion’, ‘half portion’) and country as between-subjects factors.Results:Overall, people correctly ranked foods according to their objective healthfulness as defined by risk nutrients alone, and could distinguish between more and less healthful variants of foods. General healthfulness associations with the three product categories do not appear to have had a strong influence on product ratings. This study shows that where the reference amount of ‘per 100 g’ is very different from the ‘typical’ portion size, as was the case for biscuits, products with a ‘per 100 g’ label are rated significantly less healthful than the ‘typical’ or ‘half typical’ portions.Conclusion:The results indicate that across the three food categories, consumers do factor the reference amount, that is, the quantity of food for which the nutritional information is being presented, into their judgements of healthfulness. Therefore, appropriate reference amounts are also of importance for the effective presentation of nutritional information.

When is an image a health claim? A false-recollection method to detect implicit inferences about products' health benefits

OBJECTIVE Images on food and dietary supplement packaging might lead people to infer (appropriately or inappropriately) certain health benefits of those products. Research on this issue largely involves direct questions, which could (a) elicit inferences that would not be made unprompted, and (b) fail to capture inferences made implicitly. Using a novel memory-based method, in the present research, we explored whether packaging imagery elicits health inferences without prompting, and the extent to which these inferences are made implicitly. METHOD In 3 experiments, participants saw fictional product packages accompanied by written claims. Some packages contained an image that implied a health-related function (e.g., a brain), and some contained no image. Participants studied these packages and claims, and subsequently their memory for seen and unseen claims were tested. RESULTS When a health image was featured on a package, participants often subsequently recognized health claims that-despite being implied by the image-were not truly presented. In Experiment 2, these recognition errors persisted despite an explicit warning against treating the images as informative. In Experiment 3, these findings were replicated in a large consumer sample from 5 European countries, and with a cued-recall test. CONCLUSION These findings confirm that images can act as health claims, by leading people to infer health benefits without prompting. These inferences appear often to be implicit, and could therefore be highly pervasive. The data underscore the importance of regulating imagery on product packaging; memory-based methods represent innovative ways to measure how leading (or misleading) specific images can be. (PsycINFO Database Record

Compilation of food composition data sets: an analysis of user needs through the Use Case approach.

Background/Objectives:The objective of this study was to identify the common requirements of users involved in the compilation of food composition data sets with a view to informing the development of a common access system to food composition data, within the European Food Information Resource (EuroFIR) project.Subjects/Methods:A number of examples of food composition data set compilation have been examined using the Use Case approach, namely the compilation of a data set for a national nutrition survey, for a cross-national nutrition study and for a nutritional software programme.Results:The key user requirement identified from the compilation step analysed by the Use Case approach is the increased availability of and access to more detailed food composition data on a wider range of foods and nutrients.Conclusions:Food composition data serve a variety of purposes, and different user groups will often have both common needs and more individual or specific needs of their data sets. The development of Use Cases for specific processes effectively identifies the needs of users, highlighting any similarities and/or differences in those needs. The application of the Use Case approach to support the software development activities within EuroFIR will ensure that user needs are effectively identified and captured in a systematic and documented way.

Assessment of consumer exposure to nutrition information on food labels: penetration study across the twenty-seven EU member states (EU-27) plus Turkey

Food Labelling to Advance Better Education for Life (FLABEL) is a project funded under the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme. Its objective is to understand how nutrition information on food labels affects dietary choices and consumer habits. Fundamental to this objective is the assessment of current exposure of consumers to nutrition information on food labels. At present, few data exist on the penetration of nutrition information on food labels in Europe, with previous studies involving only a small subset of countries and not looking at all products within a product category (1) . The present study aimed at designing and conducting a reproducible audit, assessing the current penetration of nutrition information on food labels in various product categories in the EU-27 plus Turkey and to identify the major ways in which nutrition information is provided on labels. In each of the twenty-seven EU countries plus Turkey three types of retailers were chosen for the audit: a retailer within the top five in terms of market share; a national retailer or consumer cooperative; a discounter. The product categories examined were sweet biscuits, breakfast cereals, ready meals, carbonated soft drinks and yoghurts. A data collection grid was designed to record where nutrition information occurred on the pack (front of pack v. elsewhere), in which format it was given (e.g. nutrition table), which nutrients were covered and whether nutrition or health claims were present. The majority of products in these five categories in all countries contained nutrition information of some kind (highest in the UK and Republic of Ireland, lowest in Eastern European countries). The most widespread format across all countries was the nutrition table on back of pack, stating either the main four (energy, protein, carbohydrates, fat) or the main eight (main four plus sugar, saturated fat, fibre and salt). Overall, breakfast cereals was the category with the highest penetration of nutrition information. Nutrition claims and guideline daily amounts were the most prevalent front-of-pack forms of nutrition information. Nutrition information was found on a large majority of products audited and its presence seems higher than reported previously (1) . The findings will provide a solid starting ground for subsequent studies involving attention, reading, liking, understanding and use of different nutrition labelling formats.

Front-of-pack (FOP) labelling of foods and beverages

Many food and drink products now display nutritional information on the front of the food package, so called front-of-pack (FOP) nutrition labels or nutrition signpost labels, which serve to provide a simple and visible summary of the products nutritional quality. This chapter reviews FOP labelling in the EU. It covers the history of FOP development, the different types of FOP labelling, the underpinnings of the different FOP schemes as well as ways of classifying FOP schemes. The impact FOP labels have on consumers and the food industry are discussed with a useful section on future trends. A list of review papers are presented for further reading.