Does the Australasian “Health Star Rating” Front of Pack Nutritional Label System Work?
Open accessAbstract
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.
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This type of ordinal label malfunction has been observed in FoP nutritional labelling in the food industry.
“While this type of malfunction has been observed in FoP nutritional labelling in the food industry [46,47]”
From Marketing Tactics for Sustainable Fashion and the Circular Economy: The Impact of Ethical Labels on Fast Fashion Choice (2023) · cites this paper as [46]
The results are in accordance with earlier labelling research in the food industry that examined the impact of similar formats of nutritional labels on consumer purchase intent.
“The results were quite clear cut and are in accordance with the results obtained in earlier labelling research within the food industry, which examined the impact of similar formats of nutritional labels on consumer purchase intent [12,46,57].”
From Marketing Tactics for Sustainable Fashion and the Circular Economy: The Impact of Ethical Labels on Fast Fashion Choice (2023) · cites this paper as [46]
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References 33 · Cited by 76
Research works printed but not linked: 4
- [16]Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (IOM) Front of Package Nutrition Rating Systems and Symbols Wartella E.A. Lichtenstein A.H. Boon C.S. the National Academies Press Washington, DC, USA 2010 Available online: https://www.nap.edu/login.php?record_id=12957&page=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nap.edu%2Fdownload.php%3Frecord_id%3D12957 (accessed on 28 March 2016) 24983042
- [34]Banks S. Experimentation in Marketing McGraw Hill New York, NY, USA 1965
- [37]Solomon M.R. Consumer Behavior: Buying, Having, and Being 12th ed. Pearson London, UK 2016
- [38]Keller K.L. Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity 4th ed. Pearson London, UK 2012
- Authors
- Hamlin, R., & McNeill, L.
- Affiliations
- University of Otago (NZ)
- Corresponding author
- Hamlin, Robert
- Venue
- Nutrients
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Published
- 2016-06-01
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 327
- ISSN
- 2072-6643 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4924168
- OpenAlex
- W2416194037
- Cited by
- 76
- References
- 33
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 3
- FWCI
- 9.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Nutrients (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- University of Otago
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Consumer Attitudes and Food Labeling
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Consumer Packaging Perceptions and Trends
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Consumer behavior in food and health
- Keywords
- Health Star Rating, front-of-pack labeling, consumer choice, supermarket consumers, brand cues, food packaging, New Zealand
- MeSH terms
- Australia, Choice Behavior, Consumer Behavior, Food, Food Labeling, Food Preferences, Humans, New Zealand, Nutritive Value, Health Behavior, Nutrition Policy
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