Recipient Organization
NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIV
(N/A)
RALEIGH,NC 27695
Performing Department
Agricultural and Resource Economics
Non Technical Summary
Policy makers are increasingly looking to potential strategies that reduce obesity, prevent diet-related NCDs, and promote healthy eating. Traditionally, information disclosure policies have played a major role in federal nutrition policy making. Prominent examples include the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) of 1990 mandating standardized Nutrition Facts labels on most packaged foods by 1994 and the required disclosure of trans fat content on Nutrition Facts labels by 2006. These labeling regulations would be most effective if people correctly process the disclosed nutrition facts, which are often in lengthy format on the back or side of the package, and act on this information by choosing healthier products. However, for an average person who makes over 200 daily food decisions (Wansink & Sobal, 2007), it may be challenging to review and process all of this labeling information. Indeed, the literature has documented that food label use varies significantly across sociodemographic subgroups (Ollberding et al., 2010) and that diet and health knowledge is one of the strongest predictors of label use (Drichoutis et al., 2006). In addition, over the decade following NLEA's full implementation, consumer use of most nutrition labels had declined (Todd & Variyam, 2008). The obesity epidemic that has escalated post-NLEA and other health concerns associated with food choices motivated the search for more effective labeling strategies that supplement the Nutrition Facts label.Among the nutrition policy options, a practical and promising policy that holds strong potential to promote healthy eating among children and their families is shelf or FOP nutrition labeling. Indeed, even before FDA declared it a top priority and pledged to establish science-based standards and voluntary guidelines for point-of-purchase nutrition labels in 2009, retailers and manufacturers had introduced various labeling initiatives, and more debuted afterward.Research examining the impacts of such labels on actual food purchases, manufacturer and retailer strategies and profits is scarce and this project is aimed to fill this gap.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
100%
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The objective of this project is to examine the effects of NuVal--a multiple-level summary system that displays a numerical nutrition score on a shelf tag and is best representative of a class of shelf nutrition labels in the marketplace--on family food purchases, retailer strategies and profits. Shelf or front-of-package (FOP) nutrition labels, an important aspect of healthy food retail, are a tool that provides summary information on the overall nutritional quality or selected information on the nutrient content of a food product. These labels provide nutrition cues to shoppers and may be effective in promoting healthy food choices at the point of purchase. The introduction of effective shelf or FOP labeling systems offers one of a small handful of practical policy tools to influence consumer nutrition behavior associated with obesity and diet-related noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). In this project, we aim to achieve the following specific goals:Goal 1: Use longitudinal household-level food purchase data to estimate the impact of NuVal on calories and nutritional quality of foods purchased.Goal 2: Quantify the value of information the NuVal label brings to the consumers.Goal 3: Examine the impact of NuVal on price and profits for retailers that adopted NuVal and those that did not.
Project Methods
Advanced statistical and econometrics methods will be used to conduct the proposed analysis. For Goal 1, difference in differences estimators will be used. For Goal 2, a structural microeconometric discrete choice model for household food purchase will be estimated and simulated. For Goal 3, a structural manufacture and retailer competition model will be estimated and simulated.To cause a change in knowledge of the target audience, we will attend professional meetings such as the agricultural and applied economics association annual meeting to present our research findings. We will also summarize results from the projects,turn them into papers and submit papers to journals for publication. Finally, we will shareour main research findings with policy makers through our extension effort.We will track the citations of the published papers and reports out of this project to quantify the impact of this project on the target audience.