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02 August 2005
Sydney
Australians have one of the highest levels of understanding of nutritional labelling on grocery products in the Asia Pacific and only seven percent of Australians never check nutritional labelling on food products, a global study by research company ACNielsen has found.
Released today, the twice-yearly global ACNielsen Online Consumer Opinion Survey, the largest of its kind, polled over 20,000 people in more than 38 countries and more than 500 Australian participants on awareness and level of understanding of the nutritional information found on packaged grocery products.
Over half of Australians (55%) said they ‘mostly’ understood the nutritional information panels/labels on food packaging, which was the second highest in the Asia Pacific region behind New Zealand. Across the region only 34 percent of consumers on average said they ‘mostly’ understood nutritional labelling, with two thirds (66%) saying they understood the labelling only ‘in part’ or ‘not at all’.
The survey found that the vast majority of Australians (93%) refer to the nutritional labelling on products – specifically, 47 percent said they checked labelling ‘when buying a product for the first time’; 25 percent ‘when on a diet’; 28 percent ‘when purchasing certain food types’; 14 percent ‘when purchasing products for children’; and 15 percent ‘when they have time’. Fifteen percent of respondents said they ‘always’ referred to nutritional information, while only seven percent of Australians said they ‘never’ checked.
“The findings demonstrate to manufacturers that clear communication of a product’s nutritional values at the point of purchase is critical,” says Gillian O’Sullivan, Director, FMCG & Retail, ACNielsen Australia. “Whether the product contents meet consumers’ selection criteria and how easily the label is understood could easily determine whether or not the consumer proceeds to purchase the product or returns it to the shelf.”
Australians indicated they were most concerned with a product’s fat and sugar levels – 58 percent said they ‘regularly’ checked food labelling for the amount of fat it contained and 51 percent ‘regularly’ checked sugar levels. And despite all the hype about the Atkins and other low carb diets, consumers appear to be interested in screening out other ingredients first, with just 28 percent claiming to check for the amount of carbohydrates on labels. Similarly, the Low GI craze doesn’t appear to have caught on in Australia – although 82 percent of consumers said they had heard about the glycemic index, only 16 percent said they regularly checked products for low GI levels. (Chart 1)
“It’s interesting to note that after all the hype and commotion over health fads such as the glycemic index, it’s still the more traditional contents such as fat and sugar that we’re checking for,” says O’Sullivan. “Consumers the world over are screening out products containing ingredients they consider to be unhealthy and making their own personal decisions about the levels of various contents such as fat and sugar.”
Globally, fat (49%), calories (43%) and sugar (42%) were the three most commonly referenced contents on nutritional labelling, however, the results differed when broken down by region and country. While North Americans and Latin Americans were more concerned with fat, calorie and sugar levels, highlighting their focus on weight loss and dieting, Mediterranean countries such as Spain, Portugal and Italy placed more emphasis on natural ingredients and were more likely to check the amount of preservatives, additives and colouring in a product. The trend was similar in many countries in Asia, particularly China, Japan and Korea.
Chart 1 – How often do you check food labeling for the content or amount of the following:
About ACNielsen
ACNielsen, a VNU business, is the world’s leading marketing information company. Offering services in more than 100 countries, the company provides measurement and analysis of marketplace dynamics and consumer attitudes and behaviour. Clients rely on ACNielsen’s market research, proprietary products, analytical tools and professional service to understand competitive performance, to uncover new opportunities and to raise the profitability of their marketing and sales campaigns.
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