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. 2016 Jun 1;8(6):327.
doi: 10.3390/nu8060327.

Does the Australasian "Health Star Rating" Front of Pack Nutritional Label System Work?

Robert Hamlin  1 , Lisa McNeill  2
Affiliations

Does the Australasian "Health Star Rating" Front of Pack Nutritional Label System Work?

Robert Hamlin et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

This article describes an experiment to measure the impact of the Australasian "Health Star Rating" front of pack nutritional label system on consumer choice behaviour. This system presents a one-half to five star rating of nutritional quality via the front facings of food product packages. While this system has been recently rolled out across Australasia, no test of its impact on food choice has been conducted. A sample of 1200 consumers was recruited on exit from supermarkets in New Zealand. A 2 × 2 factorial design was used with two levels of cold cereal product nutritional status (high, five star/low, two star) and two levels of the Health Star Rating label (present/absent). The dependent variable was revealed choice behaviour. The results indicated that the presence of the label had a significant depressive effect on consumer preference, but that this impact was not moderated in any way by the nutritional status expressed by the label. The result represents a significant functional failure of the Health Star Rating label in this research environment. The nature of the failure is consistent with the consumers processing the label in much the same way as the nominal brand cues that dominate the retail food packaging.

Keywords: FOP; HSR; TLL; front of pack; health star rating; nutrition label; traffic light label.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Evaluative/reductive based typology of front of pack (FOP) labels ([6], Reprinted with permission).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Health Star Rating (HSR) label.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Choice task as presented to a consumer in Group 2 of the experimental sample.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Experimental design.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Front facings of the treatments used, comparator product and HSR FOP labels.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Graphical presentation of results.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Plots of results related to differing outcomes.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Nominal, binary, ordinal and ratio cues.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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