Dataset Information

Consumers' Exposure to Nutrition and Health Claims on Pre-Packed Foods: Use of Sales Weighting for Assessing the Food Supply in Slovenia.

ABSTRACT: Insights into the use of health-related information on foods are important for planning studies about the effects of such information on the consumer's understanding, purchasing, and consumption of foods, and also support further food policy decisions. We tested the use of sales data for weighting consumers' exposure to health-related labeling information in the Slovenian food supply. Food labeling data were collected from 6342 pre-packed foods available in four different food stores in Slovenia. Consumers' exposure was calculated as the percentage of available food products with particular food information in the food category. In addition, 12-month sales data were used to calculate sales weighted exposure as a percentage of sold food products with certain food information in the food category. The consumer's in-store and sales-weighted exposure to nutrition claims was 37% and 45%, respectively. Exposure to health claims was much lower (13%, 11% when sales-weighted). Health claims were mainly found in the form of general non-specific claims or function claims, while children's development and reduction of disease risk claims were present on only 0.1% and 0.2% of the investigated foods, respectively. Sales data were found very useful for establishing a reliable estimation of consumers' exposure to information provided on food labels. The high penetration of health-related information on food labels indicates that careful regulation of this area is appropriate. Further studies should focus on assessing the nutritional quality of foods labeled with nutrition and health claims, and understanding the importance of such labeling techniques for consumers' food preferences and choices.

SUBMITTER: Pravst I

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4663602 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Consumers' Exposure to Nutrition and Health Claims on Pre-Packed Foods: Use of Sales Weighting for Assessing the Food Supply in Slovenia.

Pravst Igor I Kušar Anita A

Nutrients 20151112 11

Insights into the use of health-related information on foods are important for planning studies about the effects of such information on the consumer's understanding, purchasing, and consumption of foods, and also support further food policy decisions. We tested the use of sales data for weighting consumers' exposure to health-related labeling information in the Slovenian food supply. Food labeling data were collected from 6342 pre-packed foods available in four different food stores in Slovenia ...[more]

PMID: 26569301

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Project description:indicator front-of-package nutrition labelling schemes are gaining momentum. In Europe, an example of such a scheme is Nutri-Score, which was first introduced in France. Supported by additional research, the scheme has the potential to expand into other countries. Such a scenario opens a series of questions related to the use of Nutri-Score in the territories with pre-existing food labelling schemes. A key question is whether different nutrition labelling schemes would provide conflicting information for consumers when applied to same foods. The goal of our study was, therefore, to evaluate the alignment of different front-of-package nutrition labelling schemes. The study was conducted using cross-sectional data on the composition of selected categories of prepacked foods with high penetration nutrition/health claims and symbols in the Slovenian food supply. We evaluated a variety of existing front-of-package nutrition labelling schemes: three interpretive nutrition rating systems (Nutri-Score, Health Star Rating (HSR), Traffic light system), four health symbols (Protective Food symbol, Choices, Finnish heart, and Keyhole symbol), and also three nutrient profile models developed for other purposes (Office of Communications (United Kingdom, Ofcom), World Health Organization Regional office for Europe (WHOE) and Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ)). Overall, our results indicate that interpretive nutrition rating systems (i.e., Nutri-Score) are mostly less strict than the nutrient profiles of tested health symbols. A risk of conflicting information would happen in a scenario where food is eligible to carry a health symbol, but is at the same time rated to have lower nutritional quality by an accompanying interpretive nutrition rating system. When Protective Food symbol and Nutri-Score are used together, this would occur for 5% of foods in our sample. To avoid such risks, schemes for health symbols could be adapted to be stricter than interpretive nutrition rating systems used in the same territory/market, but such adaptations are challenging and should be well planned. While our study showed that, in most cases, Nutri-Score is a less strict model than tested health symbols, the rating-system approach might offer useful support and incentive for food producers towards gradual food reformulation.

Project description:Consumption of industrially produced trans-fatty acids (TFAs) is a well-established health risk factor that correlates with the increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease. The recommended TFA intake is as low as possible, within the context of a nutritionally adequate diet. Different countries have introduced different measures to minimize the exposure of their population to TFAs. Previous data have shown that TFA content has significantly decreased in Western European countries, while this was not the case in many Central-Eastern European countries, including Slovenia. In the absence of regulatory requirements, a number of awareness campaigns were launched in Slovenia since 2015, with the common goal of lowering the use of partially hydrogenated oils (PHO), which are considered a major source of TFAs. To determine if this goal had been reached, we performed an assessment of the exposure of the population to prepacked foods containing PHOs in years 2015 and 2017. Altogether, data on the composition of 22,629 prepacked foods was collected from food labels, using a specifically developed smartphone application. Furthermore, the food categories with the most frequent use of PHOs were identified. The proportion of PHO-containing products was determined for each specific food category, and adjusted with the market share data. The results showed that in 2015, vegetable cream substitutes, soups, and biscuits were the categories with the highest penetration of declared PHO content. In 2017, the proportion of products with PHO decreased considerably. In vegetable cream substitutes the percentage of PHO containing items dropped from 30 down to 4%, in soups it decreased from 21 to 5%, in biscuits from 17 to 8%, and in crisps and snacks from 10 to 4%. However, PHO content remained notable among cakes, muffins, pastries, and biscuits. We can conclude that the voluntary guidelines and regular public communication of the risks related to the TFA consumption has had a considerable effect on the food supply, but did not result in sufficient removal of PHOs from foods.

Dataset Information

Consumers' Exposure to Nutrition and Health Claims on Pre-Packed Foods: Use of Sales Weighting for Assessing the Food Supply in Slovenia.

Publications

Consumers' Exposure to Nutrition and Health Claims on Pre-Packed Foods: Use of Sales Weighting for Assessing the Food Supply in Slovenia.

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