Effects of Objective and Evaluative Front-of-Package Cues on Food Evaluation and Choice: The Moderating Influence of Comparative and Noncomparative Processing Contexts

Many nutrition labeling studies only consider how consumers process health information about a single food product (i.e., in a noncomparative processing context). However, consumers also often comparatively evaluate many different food products at once in more complex shopping environments (i.e., in comparative processing contexts). Directly addressing these important differences, the results of two online studies and two retail laboratory studies demonstrate that the effects of different types of front-of-package nutrition cues (objective vs. evaluative) vary across consumers' processing contexts (comparative vs. noncomparative). When consumers evaluate a single food item in a noncomparative context, objective nutrition cues that offer specific quantitative information lead to higher evaluations and intentions to purchase healthier products than do evaluative nutrition cues (which provide interpretive information about a product's overall healthfulness and/or nutrients). However, these effects are reversed when consumers evaluate multiple food items simultaneously in a comparative context, such that evaluative cues have a more positive impact on evaluations and purchase intentions of healthier products. The authors integrate processing fluency and resource matching theoretical frameworks to explain why evaluative (objective) front-of-package cues are more influential in comparative (noncomparative) processing contexts. Implications for consumer health, the food and retail grocery industries, and public policy are offered.