Simplified nutritional labels trim waistlines while boosting profits

When it comes to effective nutritional labels — those that actually succeed in helping customers make healthier food choices — the simpler they are the better. In fact, merely displaying a single number that represents the product’s nutritional ‘score’ will make consumers more likely to buy healthier products, while simultaneously reducing their price sensitivity.

These findings have emerged from a study of more than 535,000 shoppers and eight different food categories in a major US grocery store chain.

Co-authored by researchers from Boston College and the University of Pittsburgh, and published in the Journal of Marketing Research, the study entitled ‘Healthy Choice: The Effect of Simplified Point-of-Sale Nutritional Information on Consumer Food Choice Behavior’ examined the efficacy of the NuVal (Nutritional Value) simplified scoring system.

Simplifying nutrition

The NuVal System scores food products on a scale of 1 to 100 — the higher the score, the better the nutrition. It was developed by a team of nutrition, public health and medical experts, and is currently available in more than 1600 stores in the US.

NuVal was developed in response to a perceived failure by the 1990 Nutritional Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) to reduce obesity rates in the US. NLEA mandated nutritional labels list ingredients such as fat content, sodium, calories, carbohydrates, etc. According to the study, while well intentioned, the labels “are somewhat difficult and time-consuming to understand”, because shoppers look at the product packaging and have to “combine all the information into an overall evaluation”.

Researchers also cite a 2012 Nielsen study that found 59% of grocery shoppers experience difficulty in understanding nutritional facts on product packaging.

“Our study indicated that the NuVal nutritional scale had an immediate and powerful impact on shoppers’ decisions,” said co-author J Jeffrey Inman. “They changed their purchasing behaviour to pick healthier choices and they switched to higher-scoring products. In fact, the simplified nutritional information boosted healthy choices by over 20%.”

Researchers worked with the grocery store chain that began implementing the NuVal scoring system in its stores in 2008. The study compared purchases of more than 535,000 frequent shoppers in the six-month pre-rollout period and the six-month post-rollout period across eight food categories — frozen pizza, tomato products, soup, salad dressing, yoghurt, spaghetti sauce, granola bars and ice-cream.

Price sensitivity dropped by 19%

The researchers said NuVal — and other POS nutritional scoring systems — helps consumers to save time. This benefit, combined with America’s increased focus on health, resulted in a decrease in price sensitivity. In the grocery chain the study examined, price sensitivity decreased by 19%, while overall sales increased.

And while consumers were paying less attention to price, they actually paid more attention to a store’s promotions, giving grocery stores the opportunity to increase sales via promotions rather than price reductions.

Co-author Hristina Nikolova explained: “After the introduction of a POS simplified nutrition scoring system, shoppers start paying more attention to nutrition and they have less attention to devote to other factors in their shopping decisions, such as price for example. They are then looking for shopping heuristics that would save them mental energy — anything that makes their decisions easier. Promotions, which are usually prominently highlighted in the store, are one such heuristic. Thus, shoppers become more sensitive to promotions.”

The study’s authors say the results indicate that failing to implement a simplified nutrition scoring system could be a competitive disadvantage for stores, particularly if their competitors offer the information.

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