PACE Labels on Healthy and Unhealthy Snack Products in a Laboratory Shopping Setting: Perception, Visual Attention, and Product Choice

Abstract

Informative food labels are one way to increase nutritional awareness in society and can essentially help individuals maintain balanced dietary practices. Nonetheless, making food labels ‘informative’, in the sense of applicability, is not always easy. Physical activity calorie equivalent (PACE) food labeling is one approach to achieve this goal. Yet, it is neither understood how consumers perceive PACE labels, nor how effective they are in regards to healthy food choices. Moreover, it is of interest to assess the perception of real products in close-to-realistic environments. Therefore, this study examined a simulated purchase situation and consumers’ visual attention on PACE labels—on 20 different real snack products with varying health values. In a laboratory-shopping environment, the gaze behaviors of 91 consumers were examined with a head-mounted eye-tracker. In regards to perception, it was elucidated that every participant noticed at least one PACE label. On average 1.39 PACE label fixations on different products were counted with a mean fixation duration of 0.55 s and a mean time to first fixation of 22.46 s. On average, 22.9% of the participants viewed the PACE labels at least once, but the intensity and duration varied greatly between the different products; ’healthier products’ attracted more visual attention than ‘unhealthier products’. In regards to health choice, it became obvious that the choices observed were rather healthy and PACE labels attracted attention. This may have been especially true for participants with little involvement in physical activity and health behavior, which may have been the main target group. Hence, catchy, communicable PACE labels, as well as balanced product offerings may facilitate more healthy food choices. The real-world laboratory setting offered valuable insights, which should be followed-up on.