Impact of Nutrition Labels on Consumer Purchasing Intentions

Food Labeling Clinical Trial

Official title:

Impact of Different Front-of-pack Nutrition Labels on Consumer Purchasing Intentions: Randomized Trial in the NutriNet-Santé Study

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT02385838
• Other study ID #: Nutrinet SM1
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• First received: February 26, 2015
• Last updated: May 10, 2016
• Start date: December 2014
• Est. completion date: June 2015

Study information

• Verified date: May 2016
• Source: University of Paris 13
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Health authority: France: Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

The purpose of this interventional study is to compare the impact of four different Front-Of-Pack (FOP) nutrition labels on purchasing intentions. This study is nested in the ongoing web-based prospective observational NutriNet-Santé cohort study, including on December 2014 around 150,000 participants. The investigators will perform a five-arm randomized trial where participants will be subjected to different FOP nutrition label formats: Guidelines Daily Amount (GDA), Multiple Traffic Lights (MTL), 5-Color Nutrition Label (5-CNL), Green Tick (Tick) and a 'no label' condition. The impact of front-of-pack nutrition labels on the nutritional quality of the shopping cart will be assessed. Participants from the NutriNet-Santé cohort study will be randomly assigned to one of these five experimental conditions according to their sociodemographic characteristics.

Purchasing intentions will be assessed using an experimental web-based supermarket designed to look like a regular online grocery store. The supermarket includes 269 unique products divided into 4 categories: dairy products, processed meat/delicatessen, savory and breakfast/sugary products. Each category is then separated into specific products families like yogurt, milk, cheese, etc. for the dairy products category. Inside a food family, the selection of foodstuffs will be made to obtain a representative sample of the products commonly sold in French supermarket. For each type of products, at least two variants are proposed. Products are retailers or manufacturers branded. Categories of products that are not usually bought each week, or which are likely to be bought from different sources are not included on the web-based supermarket.

Participants are asked to simulate a shopping situation: they have to select a week worth of food for their family among proposed products. If the user is not able to find a product he/she usually buy, the instruction is to select similar product among proposed ones.

Information provided for each product is: name, price and the picture with the FOP label/or not according to the experimental condition to which the participant is allocated. A brief explanation of the FOP label used is also given.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 11981
• Est. completion date: June 2015
• Est. primary completion date: December 2014
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: Both
• Age group: 18 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Being a participant of the NutriNet-Santé cohort study

• Completing the preliminary questionnaire about nutrition knowledge and purchasing habits

• Completing online shopping in the experimental supermarket

Exclusion Criteria:

• Not going shopping usually

• Having a difference greater than 400€ between the price of their shopping cart versus their usual weekly shopping cart budget

• Having aberrant body mass index (i.e. >55 or <11 for women and <13 for men)

Study Design

Allocation: Randomized, Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment, Masking: Open Label, Primary Purpose: Screening

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Choice Behavior
• Food Labeling

Intervention

Behavioral:
• 5-CNL
The 5-CNL front-of-pack nutrition label is introduced on foodstuffs in a controlled shopping environment
• MTL
The MTL front-of-pack nutrition label is introduced on foodstuffs in a controlled shopping environment
• GDA
The GDA front-of-pack nutrition label is introduced on foodstuffs in a controlled shopping environment
• Tick
The Tick front-of-pack nutrition label is introduced on foodstuffs in a controlled shopping environment

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
France	Equipe de Recherche en Epidémiologie Nutritionnelle	Bobigny

Sponsors (2)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University of Paris 13	Institut National de la Santé Et de la Recherche Médicale, France

Country where clinical trial is conducted

France, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Overall nutritional quality of the shopping cart	The overall nutritional quality of the shopping cart is estimated by computing the Food Standards Agency (FSA) nutrient profiling system for 100 g of the cart (i.e. sum of the FSA score of all products, divided by the number of products chosen)	up to 27 weeks	No
Secondary	Caloric value of the shopping cart	The caloric value of the shopping cart is calculated for 100 g of the cart	up to 27 weeks	No
Secondary	Nutrients content of the shopping cart	The nutrients content (i.e. lipids, saturated fatty acids, sugars, proteins, fibers, sodium) of the shopping cart is calculated for 100 g of the cart	up to 27 weeks	No