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Effects of front-of-pack labels on the nutritional quality of supermarket food purchases: evidence from a large-scale randomized controlled trial

Author

Listed:
  • Pierre Dubois

    (TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - UT - Université de Toulouse - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Paulo Albuquerque

    (INSEAD - Institut Européen d'administration des Affaires)

  • Olivier Allais

    (ALISS - Alimentation et sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Céline Bonnet

    (TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - UT - Université de Toulouse - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Patrice Bertail

    (MODAL'X - Modélisation aléatoire de Paris X - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Pierre Combris

    (ALISS - Alimentation et sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Saadi Lahlou

    (LSE - London School of Economics and Political Science)

  • Natalie Rigal

    (UPN - Université Paris Nanterre, CliPsyD - Clinique, Psychanalyse, Développement - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre)

  • Bernard Ruffieux

    (GAEL - Laboratoire d'Economie Appliquée de Grenoble - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes - Grenoble INP - Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes)

  • Pierre Chandon

    (INSEAD - Institut Européen d'administration des Affaires)

Abstract

To examine whether four pre-selected front-of-pack nutrition labels improve food purchases in real-life grocery shopping settings, we put 1.9 million labels on 1,266 food products in four categories in 60 supermarkets and analyzed the nutritional quality of 1,668,301 purchases using the FSA nutrient profiling score. Effect sizes were 17 times smaller on average than those found in comparable laboratory studies. The most effective nutrition label, Nutri-Score, increased the purchases of foods in the top third of their category nutrition-wise by 14%, but had no impact on the purchases of foods with medium, low, or unlabeled nutrition quality. Therefore, Nutri-Score only improved the nutritional quality of the basket of labeled foods purchased by 2.5% (-0.142 FSA points). Nutri-Score's performance improved with the variance (but not the mean) of the nutritional quality of the category. In-store surveys suggest that Nutri-Score's ability to attract attention and help shoppers rank products by nutritional quality may explain its performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Pierre Dubois & Paulo Albuquerque & Olivier Allais & Céline Bonnet & Patrice Bertail & Pierre Combris & Saadi Lahlou & Natalie Rigal & Bernard Ruffieux & Pierre Chandon, 2020. "Effects of front-of-pack labels on the nutritional quality of supermarket food purchases: evidence from a large-scale randomized controlled trial," Post-Print hal-02562456, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02562456
    DOI: 10.1007/s11747-020-00723-5
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-02562456
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Policy; Field experiment; Food; RCT; Nutrition -; Labelling; Supermarket;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce

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