South African consumers’ interpretation of nutritional labelling systems of food products

Abstract

Nutritional labelling systems are used for effectively communicating food’s nutritional value to consumers. This study investigated the effectiveness of three existing and two proposed nutritional labelling systems in communicating the nutritional value of foods. The extent to which South African consumers make use of nutritional labelling systems to influence their food choices was also interrogated. Findings indicate that nutritional labelling systems are considered important by most participants and are used when making food choices. Nonetheless, some participants confirmed challenges with interpreting nutritional labelling systems. The observed preference for the Nestlé Know Your Serving (NKYS), Teaspoon Nutritional Illustration (TNI), Nutritional Information Table (NIT) and Guideline Daily Allowance (GDA) systems was 76%, 69%, 68%, and 67%, respectively. The lowest preference was for the Traffic Light Labelling (TLL) system (52%). Based on the percentage preference for these nutritional labelling systems, it was found that participants fall into two groups. The first group is participants with preferences for numerical data as presented by the NIT and GDA, while the second group prefers graphical data as presented by the NKYS, TNI and TLL systems. Findings from this study suggest that the use of nutritional labelling systems representing both numerical and graphical data could improve South African consumers’ understanding of the nutritional information found on food labels.