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

the use of logit models to elicit willingness-to-pay or willingness-to-purchase various
products.

From the perspective of food marketing agents, the characteristics of nutritional label
users should aid in developing a profile of those willing to purchase food products
which appeal to health conscious individuals. As the overwhelming majority of newly
introduced food products fail within their year of introduction, as much market
segmentation as possible is necessary to increase the chances of product success.
New healthful food products can be specifically targeted for nutritional label users such
as frequent consumers of organic produce, females, those with children, etc.
Marketers can choose to target characteristics such as gender and age through
advertisement. Alternatively, other characteristics can be targeted through distribution
such as rural and suburban households, household size and households with children
by selectively introducing products in regional areas where these characteristics are
highly prevalent. The results also show that frequent purchasers of organic produce
are more likely to use nutritional labeling suggesting that other healthy foods may have
greater likelihood of succeeding if distributed in places where organic produce is sold.

Policy makers can also benefit from gaining insight into nutritional labeling usage. To
increase the success of policies such as the NLEA, policy makers might foster
increased label usage by males, older individuals and urban households.

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