Adherence
Consumers infer product 'cleanliness' and health benefits primarily through peripheral cues on front-of-pack labels (e.g., organic logos, 'free-from' claims, short ingredient lists) rather than central processing of back-of-pack nutritional data.
When evaluating 'clean label' products, do not rely solely on front-of-pack claims like 'organic' or 'free-from'. These are often marketing heuristics. To truly assess healthfulness, you must inspect the back-of-pack ingredient list and nutrition facts, as consumers often overestimate the health benefits of products with these labels due to 'halo effects'.
Accordingly, we propose that consumers can access information on clean label by looking at FOP and BOP information... Based on the FOP information, consumers might interpret a product as clean label, given they find information that can serve as a cue to the clean label characteristic. Thus, the characteristic is inferred by assumption... Based on the BOP information, consumers interpret a product as clean label by inspection...
Why this rating
Based on a systematic review of 95 empirical studies.
Source
Making sense of the “clean label” trends: A review of consumer food choice behavior and discussion of industry implications
Daniele Asioli et al. · Food Research International · 2017
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