Environmental Labelling in a Virtual Supermarket

Diet, Healthy Clinical Trial

Official title:

Impact of Environmental Labelling on Food Choices : a Randomized Controlled Trial in a Virtual Reality Supermarket

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT04909372
• Other study ID #: EIPH0126
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: May 25, 2021
• Est. completion date: June 11, 2021

Study information

• Verified date: March 2022
• Source: Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l'Alimentation
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

A 2-arm randomised control trial (with and without labels) will be conducted to test the effects of an environmental label on food choices in a virtual supermarket. A sample of 130 participants will take part in two shopping tasks: 1/ selection of 3 products to prepare a home-made dish, and 2/ selection of a ready-to-eat dish. These two tasks will be repeated for two scenarios: 1/ participants will be asked to select the foods for usual meals, and 2/ participants will be asked to select the foods for environmentally-friendly meals. This experimental design will allow to compare food choices in the presence vs. the absence of an environmental label and to investigate whether the label is informative and likely to help individuals to choose more environmental-friendly food options when explicitly asked to do so.

Description:

See attached protocol documents

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 133
• Est. completion date: June 11, 2021
• Est. primary completion date: May 25, 2021
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Responsible for a substantial proportion of household grocery shopping
• Fluent in French

Exclusion Criteria:

• Dietary restrictions (vegetarian, vegan, allergies, intolerance, …)
• Uncorrected eye problems
• Known symptoms of nausea and dizziness when wearing a virtual reality headset

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Diet, Healthy
• Food Selection

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Labelling
Food products in the virtual supermarket will display an environmental label on their packaging, from A (lowest impact) to E (highest impact). The label categories are based on the Product Environmental Footprint, a score recommended by the European Commission that evaluates the environmental impact of a food product based on 16 indicators calculated throughout the life cycle of the products (e.g., climate change in kg carbon dioxide eq, marine eutrophication in kg N eq, land and water use or acidification in mol H+ eq). Instructions will introduce and explain the environmental label to the participants as "In the virtual supermarket, each product will have an environmental label. This label describes whether a product had a negative impact on the environment (green house gaz emissions, water resources depletion, etc.) from A, lowest impact, to E, highest impact.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
France	Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l'Alimentation	Dijon

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l'Alimentation

Country where clinical trial is conducted

France, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Environmental impact of the food items selected	The environmental impact of the food selection will be calculated using the Product Environmental Footprint score for 100g of products throughout their life cycle.	15 minutes (the time frame denotes time taken to make the food choice task and there is no follow up)
Secondary	Familiarity for the food items selected	The familiarity for each food selected will be assessed using a discrete scale from 1 (never purchased) to 5 (very often purchased).	15 minutes (the time frame denotes time taken to make the food choice task and there is no follow up)
Secondary	Liking for the food items selected	The liking for each food selected will be assessed using a discrete scale from 1 (I don't like it at all) to 10 (I like it very much).	15 minutes (the time frame denotes time taken to make the food choice task and there is no follow up)
Secondary	Nutritional quality of the food items selected	The nutritional quality of the food selection will be calculated using the score from the British Food Standards Agency nutrient profiling system (FSA score).	15 minutes (the time frame denotes time taken to make the food choice task and there is no follow up)
Secondary	Level of processing of the food items selected	The level of processing of the food selection will be estimated using a food classification system based on food processing (NOVA).	15 minutes (the time frame denotes time taken to make the food choice task and there is no follow up)
Secondary	Price of the food items selected	Price of the food selection will be calculated per 100 kcal.	15 minutes (the time frame denotes time taken to make the food choice task and there is no follow up)