Overcoming congruity issues of Nutritional information through Front-of-Pack Nutritional Labels: an investigation on the relative effects of Nutri-Score and NutrInform Battery

The growing rates of overweight and obesity stimulated an increasing number of individuals to actively pursue healthier lifestyles and seek nutrition information to enhance their wellbeing. As consumers gather nutritional cues from different sources (e.g., information from Front-of-Pack Nutritional Labels, scientific reports, mass media, advertising, peer recommendation etc.), they are sometime offered Conflicting Nutritional Information. Recent studies have highlighted the detrimental effects of Conflicting Nutritional Information, making it relevant for policymakers to understand the role of Front of-Pack Nutritional Labels in assisting consumers to make sense of the broader nutritional information system, particularly in the presence of contrasting messages. Our findings highlight that non-directive labels, compared to directive labels, increase the perceived congruence between the nutritional information provided by the Nutritional Labels and other external information entities, which in turn influence the perceived credibility, attitudinal, and adoption intention to the Front-of-Pack labels.