Nutri-Score vs. Nutrition Claim: The Effects of Incongruent Front-of-Pack Nutritional Information on Consumer Perceptions of Product Healthiness, Brand Attitude, and Purchase Intention

To encourage healthier food choices, an increasing number of EU governments introduced the Nutri-Score nutrition label on food package fronts. However, the label score, ranging from A (most healthy in comparison to food group alternatives) to E (least healthy), may conflict with marketing-incentivized nutrition claims that highlight positive nutritional aspects of foods (e.g., “high in fiber”) that are in fact of poor nutritional quality. To investigate how consumers respond to this discrepant front-of-pack nutritional information, we performed a 3 (Nutri-Score: A vs. E vs. absent) x 2 (Nutrition claim: present vs. absent) between-subjects experiment among 246 Dutch consumers, measuring perceived product healthiness, persuasion knowledge (i.e., critical awareness of the claim’s promotional intent), and marketing outcomes (i.e., brand attitude and purchase intention). Without a nutrition claim, breakfast cereal was perceived healthier with Nutri-Score A and less healthy with Nutri-Score E (vs. Nutri-Score absence), affecting marketing outcomes accordingly. However, in presence of a nutrition claim (“no added sugars”), no Nutri-Score effects occurred. Nutri-Score presence was unable to interrupt the promotional effect of a concurrent nutrition claim on an E-labeled breakfast cereal. However, the more a nutrition claim was perceived as a misleading marketing attempt, the less positive its effects on consumer responses.