Consumer attitudes to the use of health charity and professional medical association logos on food packaging
Tuesday 30 September 2003
The Agency has published a piece of qualitative research examining consumers’ responses to food labelling featuring the name or logo of a health charity or professional medical association.
As part of its work in protecting consumers’ interests in relation to food and food safety, the Agency wanted to consider the need for principles and guidance for manufacturers and charities to cover this type of labelling and needed to understand the consumer perspective to inform the development of any such guidance in future.
The research was undertaken by Forum Qualitative and aimed to explore awareness and perceptions of, and attitudes to, health charities’ and associations’ names and logos on food packaging, including what the name or logo communicates and how these affect purchase decisions. Participants took part in a one-to-one interview and discussion about a number of 'test' products with health charity or professional medical association logos.
Key findings were that there was limited awareness of the use of charities’ and association’ names and logos but general support of such schemes. However, consumers would like more information about the financial arrangements of any scheme and what implication this has for the health or nutritional value of the food. They also thought guidance would be useful to ensure people are not misled.
European Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 on nutrition and health claims made on foods applied from 1 July 2007 and requires claims to be authorised and listed to be used on food. Rather than laying down specific rules for the use of recommendations or endorsements by national associations of medical, nutrition or dietetic professions and health-related charities, the Regulation allows Member States to apply national rules. As there are currently no specific national rules in place in the UK, the Agency will consider developing guidance to help manufacturers and charities comply with the claims legislation.
