Evaluating Consumer Usage of Nutritional Labeling: The Influence of Socio-Economic Characteristics

throughout New Jersey and was completed in 1997. The retail locations included three
corporate supermarkets of various sizes, one independent supermarket, and a privately
owned direct market establishment. The survey was conducted during both weekend
and weekday periods throughout the morning and afternoon hours. Respondents were
approached at random while entering the retail establishment. Before distribution, the
survey was pre-tested by a group of randomly selected individuals. The pre-tested
surveys were not included in the final data set. The survey data was input into a flat
text file which was subsequently read by SAS running on a UNIX platform for
descriptive and econometric analysis.

The survey contained questions which dealt with the several issues important to food
purchasing behavior, food risk perceptions, and the socio-demographic characteristics
of the respondents. Overall, 408 surveys were physically distributed to New Jersey
shoppers yielding a sample of 291 responses with a response rate of 71 percent.

In the case of the dependent variable, 210 respondents (72%) indicated that nutritional
labeling was usually or always used when making decisions about which food products
to purchase and 81 (28%) respondents reported that labeling was not often important.
These findings were highly consistent with Bender and Derby who reported that 74
percent of consumers were label users and also Guthrie et al. who reported that 72
percent made use of food labels.

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