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<p>Previous studies, as well as market sales data, show some consumers are willing to pay a premium for redundant or superfluous food labels that carry no additional information for the informed consumer. Some advocacy groups have argued that the use of such redundant labels is misleading or unethical. To determine whether premiums for redundant labels stem from misunderstanding or other factors, this study seeks to determine whether greater knowledge of the claims - in the form of expertise in food production and scientific literacy - decreases willingness to pay for redundant labels. We also explore whether de-biasing information influences consumers’ valuations of redundant labels. An online survey of 1,122 U.S. consumers elicits willingness-to-pay premiums for three redundantly labeled products: non-GMO sea salt, gluten-free orange juice, and no-hormone-added chicken breast. Respondents with farm experience report lower premiums for non-GMO salt and no-hormone-added chicken. Those with higher scientific literacy state lower premiums for gluten-free orange juice. However, provided information about the redundancy of the claims, less than half of respondents who were initially willing to pay extra for the label are convinced otherwise. Over 30% of respondents counter-intuitively increase their premiums, behavior that is associated with less <i>a priori</i> scientific knowledge. The likelihood of “overpricing” redundant labels is associated with willingness-to-pay premiums for organic food, suggesting at least some of the premium for organic is a result of misinformation. </p>

The Fueling Station at Utah State University was created to provide pre-workout fueling and post-workout recovery foods to the Utah State University athletes. The athletes use an online survey to mark what foods they selected after each visit to the Fueling Station. There is a large amount of research on the lack of sports nutrition knowledge in collegiate athletes, but there is little information on the dietary intake of athletes, the education of athletes, and the education of macronutrient timing in athletes. A food labeling system named “Gain Your Edge” food labels that targeted the education of timing was created in the Utah State University Fueling Station. It lets athletes know which food choices might be the most appropriate choices for certain periods of timing (i.e. pre-workout versus post-workout). The Fueling Station was selected as an outlet for education because it reaches a large percentage of all Utah State athletes each week. The survey responses by the athletes were used to determine if the fueling station visits were appropriate or not appropriate based on the reported timing of eating, purpose of eating, and food selections. After four weeks of implementation, it was determined that the food labels did result in significant changes in percentage of appropriate fueling station visits for the athletes. However, almost all the athletes noticed the food labels, and more than 75% of the athletes said that the food labels influenced their food selection. This research project contributes important information about the patterns of use in a University-sponsored fueling station to the limited knowledge base of collegiate sports nutrition research.

The purpose of this thesis was to establish the importance of cognitive factors in the ability to follow therapeutic diets by examining participants’ reading behaviours when shown food labels. In two laboratory experiments, 64 undergraduate students were asked to repeatedly make decisions about the safety of foods that did or did not contain specified allergen targets. Mock food labels were presented in randomized and intermixed orders, with each of 30 products being presented 15 times. At each presentation students were able to make their safety judgement with or without consulting the food ingredient list on the label. With repetition of products, participants traded the certainty of verification for the facility of using memory. Mean target accuracy did not reach 100% implying limitations to people’s reading accuracy, learning, and judgements about that learning. The findings from this study suggest that people probably choose not to read food labels as often as they should and miss seeing target ingredients when they are consulting the label.

<div>This dissertation expands on the economics of labeling products with credence quality attributes. Specifically, it aims at incorporating recent discussions in the food markets regarding 1) consumers' difficulty of perceiving the exact quality that labels try to communicate and 2) imperfect competition on quality and price between firms providing these labeled products. These items are important because consumers and firms have to navigate a market environment in which there exist many quality labels competing for consumers' preferences (e.g., nonGMO, USDA organic, Bioengineered label, local) with many of these labels offering different grades of quality (e.g., 100\% organic, organic, made with organic ingredients). While more quality label may match consumers' heterogeneous preferences, they may cause confusion and misperception among buyers, ultimately impacting efficiency and distribution of surplus in the market. More quality labels also may impact firms' decisions as firms can select themselves into different poles of the quality spectrum and avoid price competition by doing so. Finally, governmental policies that aim at educating consumers or provide them with more options (e.g., informational-based policies, graded USDA organic certification program) can have unintended consequences under an environment in which there exist market failures related to information or competition.</div><div><br></div><div>My goal is to evaluate this complex environment in three interconnected studies. The first study is an applied theory paper in which I show how curbing consumers' misperception about quality in a market of labeled credence attributes may decrease welfare if firms imperfectly compete in quality and prices. I show that this is true if consumers' misperception offers incentives for firms to either expand the size of the market or increase the average quality of products offered. The second essay empirically tests these insights in controlled laboratory experiments in which subjects act as sellers that compete along quality and price dimensions. I show that the insights of the theory paper hold particularly when consumers overvalue a high-quality product that holds a large market share. Finally, in the last study of this dissertation, I show that the rank-order of the USDA organic certification program may not hold in all markets, as consumers may not have a high willingness to pay for 100\% organic products. In the study, I show that consumers in the market of organic ground coffee market could be better off if USDA ditched the quality grade \textbf{100\% organic} of its program. Doing so would also benefit the most profitable firms in the market and increase welfare.</div><div><br></div><div>This dissertation shows that label programs and food policies that tackle quality in credence attributes must be designed with two main market characteristics in sight. The first is how well consumers understand the information in labels. The second is what is the degree of competition in the market and how firms can use the certification program to extract further rents from consumers.</div><div><br></div>

Bakgrund: Livsmedelsmärkningar på framsidan av livsmedelsförpackningar kan vägleda konsumenter att välja mer hälsosamma produkter, och därigenom bidra till bättre folkhälsa. Märkningar kan också ge information om en produkt är bra för klimatet, ekologisk eller etiskt producerad. Det finns många olika märkningar som alla har sina egna kriterier för hur de får användas, och märkningarna är dessutom olika över landsgränserna. Syftet: Studiens syfte var att undersöka konsumenters användande och kännedom kring livsmedelsmärkningar och vilka val det leder till, samt jämföra om det var någon skillnad i användandet mellan olika åldersgrupper, kön eller hur ofta personer handlar.  Metod: En kvantitativ metod valdes för undersökningen och en digital enkät skickades ut via författarnas sociala medier. Under de sju dagar enkäten var publicerad svarade 111 personer. Data hanterades i Excel och SPSS. För att undersöka vilka skillnader som fanns mellan olika åldersgrupper, kön och frekvensen i hur ofta personer handlade användes Mann-Whitney U-test. Signifikansnivån sattes till p &lt;0,05. Enkätens öppna frågor analyserades med inspiration av tematisk analys.  Resultat: Det var ingen signifikant skillnad mellan olika åldersgrupper eller frekvensen på handlandet när det kom till kännedom om livsmedelsmärkningar och hur deltagarna valde produkt utifrån märkning. Det var heller ingen skillnad på frågan om det är viktigt med livsmedelsmärkningar. Det fanns signifikanta skillnader mellan könen. Kvinnor hade bättre kännedom om märkning som indikerar på att produkten är bra för hälsan (p=0,025). Vidare valde kvinnor i högre utsträckning produkter som hade märkning som visade att produkten var klimatsmart (p=0,001), bra för hälsan (p=0,001) samt inte innehåller en viss allergen (p=0,011).  Slutsats: Både män och kvinnor använder sig av livsmedelsmärkningar även om kvinnor gör det i högre grad. Mer forskning behövs för att kunna avgöra exakt vad konsumenter efterfrågar i en livsmedelsmärkning och den forskningen kan hjälpa både livsmedelsproducenter och myndigheter i sitt arbete framåt. / Background: Front-of-package food labels could guide consumers to choose healthier products and, therefore, contribute to better public health. Food labels can also give information about if a product is good for the environment, organic, or ethically produced. There are many different food labels, all with their own criteria for usage and there are also different labels between countries.  Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate consumers knowledge about front-of-package food labels and how they use it to make decisions at the grocery store and also if there is a difference between different age groups, genders, or frequency in grocery shopping. Method: A quantitative method was selected for the study and a digital survey was sent out through the authors social media channels. During a period of seven consecutive days 111 people participated. The data was handled in Excel and SPSS. The statistical test Mann-Whitney U-test was used with p&lt;0.05 to examine the differences between age groups, gender, and frequency. The open questions were analyzed with inspiration from a thematic analysis. Result: There was no statistical difference between age groups or how often people went grocery shopping when it came to knowledge about front-of-package food labels and how the respondents chose the products. There was also no difference when asked if front-of-package food labels are important. There was a statistical difference regarding gender where women had a better knowledge about labeling indicating that a product is healthier (p=0.025). The women also chose products that had a label that showed that the product was environmentally friendly (p=0.001), healthy (p=0.001), or containing allergens (p=0.011).  Conclusion: Consumers use front-of-package food labels and women are using them to a higher extent than men. More research is needed to conclude what the consumers actually ask for in a front-of-package food label and that research could help both food producers and governments.

The purpose of the study was to determine if nutrition knowledge would increase, indicated by improvements in pretest and posttest scores, following implementation of a nutrition lesson plan. The subjects included 532 fourth through eighth grade students from Johnson County, a rural county in northeast Tennessee. The lesson plans and pretests and posttests were developed to be appropriate for each grade level, with increased complexity in higher grades. The principal investigator graded the pretests and posttests and analyzed the data using SPSS. The results showed a significant improvement from pretests to posttests for all grades given a p-value of <0.05.

This article examines the question of whether a manufacturer is liable to prosecution for fraud if he sells food that is labeled, for example, as 'organic' or 'fairtrade' even though the product does not actually meet these criteria. In the present article, this legal question is examined based on the (objec- tive) offense of fraud under Section 263 (1) of the German Criminal Code (“StGB”), which provides a fine or a prison sentence of up to five years. In particularly cases such as commercial fraud, a prison sentence of up to ten years may be imposed. In order not to overload the article, the relationship be- tween the food producer ('seller') and the buyer is considered. In view of the international nature of this medium, this article merely aims to raise awareness of this criminal law issue. Therefore, the main features of the objective elements of fraud are presented and the legal opinions are summarized concisely. With regard to causality and the subjective elements of fraud, it can be anticipated in this constellation that no specific peculiarities are recognizable, which is why these points will not be discussed. In addition to the Section 263 (1) StGB discussed here, other criminal offenses may also be relevant.

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Food labels are imperative in consumers‟ decision-making process of packaged food products as they communicate important information such as expiry dates, nutrition information and information about allergies to the consumer. Especially during a first-time purchase, consumers rely on food labels to assist them in making their product choice easier. In the heterogeneous context of South Africa, consumers‟ product needs vary and one may assume that consumer needs in terms of food label information differ. Although food labelling is regulated in South Africa, it is still important that consumers are satisfied with labels due to their significant communicative function. However, to the knowledge of the author, little previous research exists on South African consumers‟ satisfaction with food labels. Therefore, this study aimed to explore and describe consumers‟ satisfaction with food labels based on a typical in-store encounter. The confirmation/disconfirmation paradigm had been used as theoretical foundation in this study and consumers‟ expectations and performance judgement of food labels were therefore explored and compared within the confirmation/disconfirmation paradigm. This study furthermore aimed to explore the influence of food labels on consumers‟ product choice as well as to determine the influence of demographic characteristics on consumers‟ expectations and performance judgement of food labels. Lastly, this study aimed to make recommendations to food regulators and manufacturers on how existing food labels could be improved in order to enhance consumer satisfaction. Based on the literature, satisfaction with food labels might be influenced by the information on food labels such as ingredient lists, expiry dates and nutrition information as well as attributes of food labels such as the readability, understandability, credibility and adequacy. Exploratory factor analysis used in the present study indicated that the information on food labels can be classified as either primary (ingredient list, expiry date, health and nutrition information, information about allergies and quality guarantee) or secondary (name of manufacturer, well-known logos or symbols, country of origin or geographical region, usage instructions and number of servings). A quantitative research method by means of a survey approach was used in this study over a period of three weeks. A total of 400 self-administered questionnaires were distributed at office buildings and business premises in the urban Gauteng Province in September 2010 by means of a non-probability sampling method. A total of 279 useful questionnaires were retrieved and data analysis was performed by Statistical Consultations Services of the North-West University using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences). Results show that respondents were only partially satisfied with food labels as they were satisfied with secondary information, but dissatisfied with primary information as well as with label attributes. The results furthermore show that primary information tended to be more likely to influence respondents‟ product choice than secondary information. In addition, results show that demographics had little influence on respondents‟ expectations and performance judgement of food labels. Based on the findings of this study, recommendations can be made to regulators and manufacturers on how consumer satisfaction with existing food labels can be improved. Recommendations include the improvement of the overall readability, understandability, credibility as well as adequacy of food labels. Especially primary information and the way it gets portrayed should be considered for improvement to increase consumer satisfaction. / Thesis (M. Consumer Science)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011