1 Needs And Attitudes Towards Food Labelling
A total of 1940 interviews were achieved (1259 in Australia and 681 in New Zealand) obtaining a representative sample of each population. The refusal rate for the interview was 16%, which is extremely low for a door-to-door study (the refusal rate is usually around 40%). Therefore the survey samples are more likely to be representative of the populations surveyed.
The interview began by asking respondents a number of questions about any special health needs that influence their food choices, and their attitudes towards buying healthy foods and using food labels. These questions were asked in order to provide additional cross-variables for data analysis (in addition to demographic variables), in order to make conclusions about different ‘types’ or segments of consumers, where they differed to the sample population.
In this section we report on the results for each question, and detail how the results were further collapsed for use as cross-variables.
1.1. Special needs
Question 1 was used to establish whether respondents, or any members of their family, have any special needs that make them more careful about choosing food products.
Forty one percent of respondents said they had no special needs. One in five respondents (21%) reported having health concernssuch as high blood pressure or cholesterol.Eighteen percent reported havinggeneral healthneeds, and 11% reported havingasthma. In total, 12% of respondents mentioned having food allergies, of which 4% were specific to nuts.
The results from this question have been used to create subgroups for cross analysis. The subgroups created are either:
1. Presence of special needs
- Have a special need
- No special need
2. Type of special need
- Allergies / asthma (food allergy to nuts, seafood, fish, milk, gluten, eggs, soybeans)
- Medical condition (diabetes, heart disease, health concerns such as high blood pressure or cholesterol, digestive concerns such as coeliac disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome)
- Weight loss
- All other needs (pregnancy and breast feeding, vegetarian/vegan, religious/ethical beliefs, training for sports, general health, migraine)
The proportional breakdown of these results are reported at Presentation Slide 14.
1.2. Health consciousness
Respondents were read a series of statements about buying food and were asked to indicate which one best describes how they felt about buying food for their household.
A high proportion of consumers indicated some level of commitment to choosing healthy foods. Forty three percent of respondents reported that they regularly choose the ‘healthy’ alternative, such as low fat, no added sugar, low salt etc., even if it costs more. Around one third (34%) of all respondents reported that they sometimes choose healthy or nutritious foods, depending on cost and convenience. Twelve percent of respondents reported that they always choose the ‘healthy’ alternative, even if it costs more. Eight percent of respondents reported that they usually don’t worry about the health or nutritional value of the foods that they choosewhile 3% of respondents reported being not at all concerned about the health or nutritional value of the foodsthat they choose.
Respondents from New Zealand were significantly5 [1] more likely than those from Australia to report that they regularly choose the ‘healthy’ alternative (45% versus 39%).Respondents with special needs were significantly more likely than those without special needs to report that they regularly choose the ‘healthy’ alternative (50% versus 33%). It is worth noting that New Zealand interviewers suggested that recent public nutrition campaigns in New Zealand, and increased media discussion about GMO issues by political parties around the national election held just weeks before the survey could account for the greater reported commitment to buying healthy foods by consumers in New Zealand.
Likelihood to regularly choose the ‘healthy’ alternativealso differed significantly between gender (females 46%, versus males 37%), and age (45-64: 51% versus 18-24: 21%, 25-44: 42%, and 65+ 46%).
This question provided an indication of health consciousness used later for subgroup comparison and segmentation analysis. This may reflect the impact of public health nutrition campaigns and the increased availability of healthy alternatives over the last decade. Respondents who regularly oralways choose the healthy alternativewere classified as ‘highly’ health conscious’ Respondents who usually don't worry about the health of nutritional value of the foods that they chooseorsometimes like to choose healthy or nutritious foods, depending on cost and convenience were classified as ‘moderately’ health conscious. Respondents who were not at all concerned about the health or nutritional value of the foods that they choose were classified at ‘not at all’ health conscious'
1.3. Specific consumer attitudes towards labelling
Respondents were asked to rate how strongly they agreed or disagreed with a number of statements relating to their attitudes about selecting food products.
Responses are shown in Table 1.3 below.
Table 1.3: Specific consumer attitudes towards labelling
Statement | Strongly agree(%) | Tend to agree(%) | Neither agree nor disagree (%) | Tend to disagree(%) | Strongly disagree(%) |
BASE: 1940 | |||||
I’ve always been able to find any information I need on a food or drink label | 7 | 37 | 15 | 32 | 9 |
When I read the labels on food products, I just focus on one or two key things | 15 | 49 | 15 | 16 | 5 |
Generally speaking, it’s easy to understand and use the information on food labels | 10 | 43 | 17 | 23 | 7 |
I find some information on food labels really useful or important | 23 | 54 | 15 | 6 | 1 |
It’s hard to tell which parts of the label are advertising and which are standard information manufacturers have to put on | 12 | 35 | 21 | 26 | 5 |
I don’t have enough time to read food labels when I’m shopping, even if I wanted to | 7 | 24 | 18 | 36 | 15 |
I’m very interested in food label information | 32 | 37 | 17 | 10 | 4 |
Note percentages may not add to 100% as don’t know responses are not shown
A number of significant differences were observed between subgroups such as health consciousness, country, and special needs. These are reported in the PowerPoint presentation (slides 15-34) and the data tables.
Individual responses to the attitudinal questions have also been used in the segmentation analysis reported at section 4, and PowerPoint slides 150-172.