Sunday 5 July 2009

What consumers want - a literature review

Thursday 22 March 2007

On 21 September 2006, the Board of the Food Standards Agency asked that consumer research be undertaken to determine what consumers looked for on the label.

Prior to commissioning any research, the Executive decided to undertake an in-house literature review of existing research into the understanding of food labels and their use by consumers. There were three aims: to create a reference source of such research, to inform the Agency for the current EU review of general food labelling legislation, and to indicate whether there is a need for further research to take forward the aims of the Agency.

This review will be used by the Agency as a source document and will help to inform the UK's position in providing information to the Commission during the EU review of food labelling. It has been concluded that there is a need for further research on consumer behaviour to validate the proposed principles for consumer information provision that were discussed at the February open Board meeting. The Agency will continue to monitor consumer research in this area and will update the review at regular intervals.

The review was conducted by searching for and summarising research commissioned by the Agency and work commissioned or conducted by the European Commission, other EU Member States, academic researchers and market research organisations.

The review includes findings relating to the following topics: label information content, misdescription, using labels, marketing terms (such as fresh, pure, natural), off-label information and new technologies, effect of packaging/type of product, size, shape, packaging material, voluntary information, alcoholic beverages/alcopops, clarity, country of origin and welfare labelling.

Graphic version of this page

What consumers want - a literature review

Related links

Tell a Friend

Printer friendly

Contact us

Get alerts

Our Sites