Measuring Consumers’ Acceptance in Food Labels: a Cross-Country Investigation on Usefulness, Ease of Use and Trust

Front-Of-Pack Labels (FOPLs) are being increasingly investigated as a tool to guide customers toward healthier food choices. Existing theoretical models focused on consumers understanding have not been able to provide clear evidences of which labels are more effective on food choices. Drawing on extant studies conducted on primary grocery shoppers from Italy, France and the UK we developed a new framework, the Front-Of-Pack Acceptance Model (FOPAM), to evaluate label effectiveness in terms of usefulness, ease of use, attitude, trust and behavioral intention. Our findings highlight significant relationships between perceived usefulness, ease of use of the labels and trust towards them, and the way consumers form their attitudes and intentions towards buying healthier products