According to a recent UK study, 39% of people found supermarket chain—Sainsbury’s—labels the easiest to understand, closely followed by Asda's. However, some stores were found to lag behind according to other consumers, finding those labels confusing.
As levels of obesity rise in the UK and people find themselves confused by portion size and the GDA—Guideline Daily Amount—system, one label company (www.data-label.co.uk) decided to investigate the root cause. They surveyed over 1,000 people aged 18 and over to find out which of the big 4 supermarkets have the clearest labels for nutritional information & portion sizing.
Respondents judged labels on store brands of 400g of lasagna—a serving portion for 1 person—from Asda, Sainsbury’s Tesco & Morrisons. The labels were shown without company logos or branding to insure impartiality. The results showed that Sainsbury’s had the clearest nutritional information, while Morrisons had the hardest to understand: Sainsbury’s–38%, Asda–37%, Tesco –15% & Morrisons–10%.
The discrepancies are due to the traffic light color system, adopted to help consumers see the nutritional & GDA information as low, medium or high. Each supermarket chain can determine the value of each color, causing discrepancies & confusion among brands.
As levels of obesity rise in the UK and people find themselves confused by portion size and the GDA—Guideline Daily Amount—system, one label company (www.data-label.co.uk) decided to investigate the root cause. They surveyed over 1,000 people aged 18 and over to find out which of the big 4 supermarkets have the clearest labels for nutritional information & portion sizing.
Respondents judged labels on store brands of 400g of lasagna—a serving portion for 1 person—from Asda, Sainsbury’s Tesco & Morrisons. The labels were shown without company logos or branding to insure impartiality. The results showed that Sainsbury’s had the clearest nutritional information, while Morrisons had the hardest to understand: Sainsbury’s–38%, Asda–37%, Tesco –15% & Morrisons–10%.
The discrepancies are due to the traffic light color system, adopted to help consumers see the nutritional & GDA information as low, medium or high. Each supermarket chain can determine the value of each color, causing discrepancies & confusion among brands.
