Nutritional Labeling and Consumer Choices

In 1994, nutritional facts panels became mandatory for processed foods to improve consumer access to nutritional information and to promote healthy food choices. Recent applied work is reviewed here in terms of how consumers value and respond to nutritional labels. We first summarize the health and nutritional links found in the literature and frame this discussion in terms of the obesity policy debate. Second, we discuss several approaches that have been used to empirically investigate consumer responses to nutritional labels: (a) surveys, (b) nonexperimental approaches utilizing revealed preferences, and (c) experiment-based approaches. We conclude with a discussion and suggest avenues of future research.