Nutritional labels to nudge consumers towards healthier food choices: persistence over time, effect of informational interventions and situational factors (time pressure and price) as moderators.

Numerous tags and labels try to convince customers in the supermarket to choose their product. This is called 'nudging'. Although food labels are all over the place, little is known about the nudging effect of food labels on buying behavior. This project builds on insights from behavioral economics to tackle some of the gaps in nudging literature and add to a better understanding of the nudging effect of front-of-pack food labels. We will study who is most influenced by a FOP-label and whether there is a product-label interaction. We will study the effect of 2 external factors that might influence the nudging of a FOP-label, viz. time-pressure and pricing. Finally, we will conduct an experiment in a real-life setting and study whether all results are persistent in the complex environment of a supermarket, with all external competitive factors influencing buying behavior. We will study whether the food label nudging effect lasts over time and whether it can be influenced by an informational campaign. This project is innovative in its methodology and experimental set-up, resulting in high internal and external validity and little observational bias. It is innovative in its subject, contributing to Flanders' transition area Food 2025 in subareas Food and Health and Optimal Interaction within the Chain and with Consumers. Additionally, it provides a methodology which can be used in future studies to maximize the nudging effect of food labels in public health policy.

Keywords:MARKETING, NUTRITION, CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

Disciplines:Consumer behaviour, Marketing communications, Information, knowledge and uncertainty