Effects of Food Label Health and Nutrition Claims on Consumer Perceptions

Two experiments are reported that examined consumers' perceptions of food package labels where health and nutrition claims were present and where they had been removed. Unlike previous studies examining the influence of information on perception, realistic materials were used. This was accomplished by presenting information on a computer as photo-realistic images of packages where claims had been removed by editing to give a without-claims condition. Automatic presentation of materials and data collection meant participants proceeded through the computer questionnaire without the presence of an experimenter. The experiment was conducted with both British and French consumers. No significant…