Estimating Fat Components of Potato Chips Using Visible and Near-Infrared Spectroscopy and a Compositional Calibration Model

When aiming to assess the fat composition of commercial potato chip products, their diversity and the difficulties to verify the nutritional label of batches of chips by official methods are main challenges. Thus, the possibility of using alternative technologies is of great interest for both the industry and the public administration. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a rapid and non-destructive technique that has been proven useful in different applications in the food industry. However, suitable specific treatments of compositional references with NIRS methods have been until now very scarce in the literature. The nutritional label information is commonly given as percentage content values across several nutritional categories. This formally corresponds with the class of so-called compositional data, for which there are specific statistical methods. This study contributes to ongoing research on the feasibility of Vis/NIR spectroscopy for food nutritional labelling. In particular, a calibration model is formulated to estimate the relative content of fat in potato chips products based on NIR spectral signal that integrates a consistent statistical treatment of the nutritional reference data. The method provides accurate estimates of the fat composition, with this including saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated types of fat, as well as their total fat percentage (cross-validated overall R2 = 0.88 and R2 = 0.82 from ground and fragmented samples respectively) and shows its potential for both nutritional labelling and verification in a rapid and inexpensive manner.

Nutritional information labels and health claims to promote healthy consumption

Purpose Rates of diseases caused by poor diet have seen no reduction in recent years. In this scenario, nutritional information labels and health claims could play a decisive role in modifying product attitudes and purchase intention (consequently, eating habits). In this frame, the first objective is to analyze the role of three antecedents on attitudes toward nutritional labels and credibility from health claims. These three starting antecedents are as follows: psychological characteristics of the consumer associated with eating disorders, body image attitudes and affective reactions (pleasure and arousal). Second, this paper aims to analyze if both elements (attitudes toward nutritional labels and credibility from health claims) improve (or not) food product attitudes and then, its purchase intention. Design/methodology/approach The sample comprised 300 young people between 18 and 25 years old. They provided their opinion about a healthy product by completing a structured and personal questionnaire after inspecting the packaging. Path analysis with partial least squares (PLS) was carried out to test the hypotheses stated. Findings First, psychological characteristics associated with eating disorders (self-concept and self-esteem) have a positive significant influence on body image attitudes. Second, attitudes toward their body image have a great effect on the perception that these consumers have about the information provided by healthy food packaging. Insofar as those whose attitudes toward their body image is “damaged” seek in the nutritional label indications that make them feel calm understanding that the food they are going to buy is not harmful to their health. Moreover, credibility from health claims improves positive attitudes toward the nutritional label. On the contrary, those consumers with higher punctuations in body image assigned lower values to those items concerning nutritional information and health claims in the packaging. Third, if attitudes to nutritional information improve, then product attitudes improve too. Fourth, if product attitudes improve, then purchase intention improves too. So, food product managers should be aware of the need to improve product attitudes by working on the packaging (label and claim) to improve purchase intention. Originality/value First, although previous literature has investigated individual psychological characteristics related to food disorders in the health area, the study of these specific individual psychological characteristics (ineffectiveness, perfectionism, interpersonal distrust, interceptive awareness, maturity fears), is under-researched in the marketing discipline. Second, to date, different authors have investigated how important the use of credibility from health claims in packaging can be in terms of increasing product attitudes and purchase intention, as well as the development of positive attitudes toward nutritional information on the label. However, the joint study of both information sources in the packaging (credibility from health claims and attitudes toward nutritional labels) remains under-investigated.

The Nutri-Score in France and beyond: development, validation and transfer

The Nutri-Score is a summary graded front-of-pack nutritional label, providing a synthetic information to consumers on the overall nutritional quality of a food product, based on its composition in several key unfavourable (energy, saturates, sugars, salt) and favourable (proteins, fibers, fruit, vegetables, nuts, legumes and certain vegetable oils (olive, rapeseed and nuts)). The Nutri-Score was developed by a team of independent scientists, and initially proposed in France in 2014. Following intense opposition by industry and considerable arguments, a 2-yearlong debate, the Nutri-Score was selected to be the official French front-of-pack nutrition label. In parallel, more than 40 publications in peer-reviewed journals investigated its validity on multiple dimensions, further supporting its implementation. Following the implementation of the Nutri-Score, consumer groups' pressure and a growing interest from the public pushed manufacturers to adopt the label, with more than 300 pledges of adoption from industry in 2020. After France, neighbouring countries (Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands) have now also adopted the scheme, prompting new challenges for development at a larger scale. The implementation of the system in France was made possible by strong public support for such a measure - relayed by consumer groups and disseminated in the media and a strong political will from the Health ministry to put together a validated and helpful system, which finally prevailed upon economic interests. Sustained support from consumers in particular helped turn the tide from a relatively low engagement of stakeholders towards the acknowledgement of the Nutri-Score as a standard for front-of-pack labelling in France and several EU countries. The Nutri-Score is an example of a public health measure informed by scientific evidence that may have a clear impact on the nutritional quality of diets in the population.

An Experimental Comparison of the Impact of ‘Warning’ and ‘Health Star Rating’ FoP Labels on Adolescents’ Choice of Breakfast Cereals in New Zealand

This research investigated the performance of the red, octagonal Vienna Convention traffic ‘STOP’ sign as a front of pack (FoP) warning nutritional label. While the Vienna Convention traffic light system is an established FoP label, the potential of the ‘STOP’ sign in the role has not been investigated. The performance of the ‘STOP’ label was compared with that of a single star (low nutritional value) Australasian Health Star Rating (HSR) label using a fractionally replicated Latin square design. The labels were presented on choice diads of cold breakfast cereal packets. The sample of 240 adolescents aged 16–18 was drawn from a secondary school in the South Island of New Zealand. A large and significant main effect was observed at the p < 0.01 level for the difference between the ’STOP’ sign and the control condition (no nutritional FoP label), and at p < 0.05 for the difference between the HSR and the ‘STOP’ label. There was no significant difference between the HSR FoP and the control condition. A significant non-additivity (interaction) (p < 0.01) was also observed via the fractional replication. The results indicate that the Vienna Convention ‘STOP’ sign is worthy of further research with regard to its potential as an FoP nutritional label.

Association between Use of Nutritional Labeling and the Metabolic Syndrome and Its Components

In this study, we looked into the association between the diagnosis of metabolic syndrome (MetS) and nutritional label awareness. This study used data from the Korea National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (KNHANES) for the years 2007 to 2015. The study population consisted of a total of 41,667 Koreans of which 11,401 (27.4%) were diagnosed with metabolic syndrome and 30,266 (72.6%) were not. Groups not using nutritional labeling had a 24% increase in odds risk (OR: 1.24, 95% CI 1.14–1.35) of MetS compared to groups using nutritional labeling. Use of nutritional labeling was associated with all components of MetS. Central obesity showed the highest increase in odds risk (OR: 1.23, 95% CI 1.13–1.35) and high blood pressure showed the lowest increase in odds risk (OR: 1.11, 95% CI 1.02–1.20). Subgroup analysis revealed that statistically significant factors were smoking status, drinking status and stress status. Groups that smoke, groups that do not drink and groups with high stress were more vulnerable to MetS when not using nutritional labeling. People not using food labels tends to develop metabolic syndromes more than people using foods labels. In the subgroup analysis, drinking status, smoking status and stress status were significant factors.

Nutrition Food Labels on Consumers Purchase Behaviour: A Triangulation Approach

The research paper is about the efforts taken by the marketers in the new century to market the products with the most attractive term “Nutrition food labels”. Nutritional labeling is the practice of providing nutritional information on the labels of food packages. Since nutrition label introduces the product to the distributor or target consumer by providing them with all the information regarding the product. The main aim of a marketer is to achieve maximum customer satisfaction, because once if a customer is satisfied it automatically increases customer loyalty and has a positive impact on the firm’s profitability position. Our research would help the other researchers to understand the factors that will lead to final purchase identifying the factors that will influence the consumer in making their final purchase decision. The variable matrix proposed with regard to nutritional label would help the researchers in figuring out the measures that would intensely gain the awareness of making use of food labels. Further it would help other researcher to conduct similar studies in different geographical locations across the globe. Other variables can be included along with the variables identified in our study; researchers can also come up with a new study considering this study as a base paper. It is important to assign weights to most discussed variable and then to finalize the variable matrix and hence the researchers have used Dedoose software to analyze the literature review and to find the most promising variable which can be used for the present study. Moreover, lifestyle has a major impact on the consumers brand preference by giving importance to nutritious content. The researchers have concluded that the nutritious labeling descriptions should be considered by the consumers which will help them to maintain a balanced diet but are the consumers aware of the consequences of consuming the wrong product with false information. This mixed approach method has provided insights on quantitative and qualitative approach.