Lydiane Nabec presented the paper co-written with Philippe Mérigot, entitled: “Are front-of-pack labels legitimate? The explicative role of label format according to consumers’ nutrition expertise” at the 33rd Congress of the French Marketing Association (AFM), Tours, May 16-19.
Abstract: To help changing nutritional practices of consumers and to improve their collective and individual well-being, a French law of 2016 organizes the affixing of a simplified and harmonized front-of-pack nutritional label. Several proposals were made during the debates, whether from academics or industrials and retailers. What is at stake for public authority is the reading of nutritional information by the consumers with a low nutrition expertise. Taking up this challenge implies that consumers grant legitimacy to these labels, especially the less expert consumers. With an online experiment with 18 098 consumers who participates in the NutriNet-Santé study, we show that the legitimacy of front-of-pack labels depends on the format of they adopt and consumers’ nutrition expertise. These results help public authorities to choose the optimal format of front-of pack nutritional labels for a targeted segment.