{"title":"Nutriscore’s impact on purchase intention for products with geographical indications: a Bayesian causal mediation analysis","authors":"Stranieri Stefanella , Casati Mirta , Soregaroli Claudio , Varacca Alessandro","doi":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102942","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigated how (NS) and geographical indication (GI) labels interact to influence consumers’ purchase intention for hard cheese products in Italy and the Netherlands. Using a Bayesian causal mediation analysis framework, we conducted an online randomised experiment with a between-subjects design. The analysis focused on the effect of an NS grade D label on purchase intention, comparing generic cheeses to those with PDO label. Furthermore, we explored whether perceived healthiness mediates the relationship between an NS grade D label and purchase intention for these products. The results revealed that although an NS grade D label can reduce perceived healthiness, particularly in countries with low familiarity with GIs, its total effect on purchase intention is limited. In the Netherlands, PDO label mitigates the negative effect of NS grade D on perceived healthiness, demonstrating its ability to offset unfavourable nutritional signals. We identified a dual effect of an NS grade D label: a negative effect on purchase intention due to its impact on perceived healthiness and a direct positive effect likely to result from consumers appreciating the transparency it provides. This suggests that consumers can appreciate the information value of NS, even if the label conveys unfavourable nutritional information. These insights are valuable to policymakers and industry stakeholders when managing the implementation of packaging labels in various European markets.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":321,"journal":{"name":"Food Policy","volume":"135 ","pages":"Article 102942"},"PeriodicalIF":6.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Food Policy","FirstCategoryId":"97","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919225001472","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS & POLICY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This study investigated how (NS) and geographical indication (GI) labels interact to influence consumers’ purchase intention for hard cheese products in Italy and the Netherlands. Using a Bayesian causal mediation analysis framework, we conducted an online randomised experiment with a between-subjects design. The analysis focused on the effect of an NS grade D label on purchase intention, comparing generic cheeses to those with PDO label. Furthermore, we explored whether perceived healthiness mediates the relationship between an NS grade D label and purchase intention for these products. The results revealed that although an NS grade D label can reduce perceived healthiness, particularly in countries with low familiarity with GIs, its total effect on purchase intention is limited. In the Netherlands, PDO label mitigates the negative effect of NS grade D on perceived healthiness, demonstrating its ability to offset unfavourable nutritional signals. We identified a dual effect of an NS grade D label: a negative effect on purchase intention due to its impact on perceived healthiness and a direct positive effect likely to result from consumers appreciating the transparency it provides. This suggests that consumers can appreciate the information value of NS, even if the label conveys unfavourable nutritional information. These insights are valuable to policymakers and industry stakeholders when managing the implementation of packaging labels in various European markets.
期刊介绍:
Food Policy is a multidisciplinary journal publishing original research and novel evidence on issues in the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of policies for the food sector in developing, transition, and advanced economies.
Our main focus is on the economic and social aspect of food policy, and we prioritize empirical studies informing international food policy debates. Provided that articles make a clear and explicit contribution to food policy debates of international interest, we consider papers from any of the social sciences. Papers from other disciplines (e.g., law) will be considered only if they provide a key policy contribution, and are written in a style which is accessible to a social science readership.