Shelf nutrition labels provide summary information on the overall nutritional quality of a food product. They provide cues to shoppers and may be effective in promoting healthy food choices at the point of purchase. The purpose of this project is to examine the effects of NuVal, a shelf nutrition labeling and nutrient profiling system, on food purchases and calories. The study will use retrospective purchasing data from 3,765 households from three retailers that have adopted NuVal, an in-store shopper intercept study, and a retail audit study to estimate the impact of NuVal on calories and nutritional quality of food purchases. Scanner data from the IRI Academic Data Set will be used to track household-level purchases and store-level prices and sales in two IRI BehaviorScan cities—Eau Claire, Wis., and Pittsfield, Mass.,—before and after adoption of NuVal. Investigators will estimate the effects of NuVal labels on four key consumer choice variables: weighted average NuVal score, calories purchased, average NuVal score per dollar spent, and calories per dollar spent; and will focus on four food categories: canned soup, frozen meals, cold cereal, and yogurt. The study will also test for differential impacts between lower- and higher-income families, between families with and without children, and between households with and without college education.
Examining the Effects of Summary Nutrition Shelf Labels on Lower-Income Household Food Purchases
Start Date: August 2015
ID #: CAS031
Organization: University of Georgia
Project Lead: Chen Zhen, PhD
Age Groups: Preschool-age children (ages 3 to 5), Elementary-age children (grades K to 5), Young adolescents (grades 6 to 8), Adolescents (grades 9 to 12), Adults and Families
Resource Type: Commissioned Research Project Summary
Focus Area: Food & Beverage Marketing
Race/Ethnicity: Multi-racial/ethnic
Keywords: Front-of-package labeling, Grocery store, In-store marketing, Supermarket
States: Massachusetts, Wisconsin
Related Research
August 2019
Does Point-of-Sale Nutrition Information Improve the Nutritional Quality of Food Choices?
Point-of-sale nutrition information has been adopted by numerous grocery stores to respond to the demand for easy-to-understand nutrition labeling by consumers. Although there is conflicting evidence regarding the effectiveness of providing nutrition information, previous research indicates simplified shelf nutrition labels may lead to healthier choices. However, these studies have not … More
July 2019
The Impact of NuVal Shelf Nutrition Labels on Food Purchase
Summary shelf nutrition labels are one of a handful of practical strategies that hold the promise of improving nutrition and public health. Researchers used a difference-in-differences approach to estimate the effect of the NuVal shelf label—an interpretive numeric score, now defunct, that rated the overall nutrition of foods from one … More
April 2018
Identifying the effect of shelf nutrition labels on consumer purchases: results of a natural experiment and consumer survey
Shelf nutrition labels provide summary information on the overall nutritional quality of a food product. They provide cues to shoppers and may be effective in promoting healthy food choices at the point of purchase. The objective of this study was to explore the impact of NuVal Labels, a shelf nutrition … More