Doris Schicker and Jessica Freiherr from the Fraunhofer Institute led a study to explore whether pairing food labels with a sensory stimulus – like an odour – affected how people perceived foods and thus promoted healthy shopping.
Nutritional labels meant to convey healthiness may instead create negative expectations about taste or pose as a ‘time-constraining hurdle for shoppers’, the study claimed.
Positive odours
Researchers imaged the brains of more than 60 people as they interacted with drink labels that featured nutrition-related statements. The labels that were paired with odours were perceived more positively than those without.
Additionally, the presence of odour altered the activity of brain regions that process flavours and labels, as well as brain regions associated with reward and decision-making – the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the left ventral striatum/nucleus accumbens and the right Amy/pirC.
The study concluded that the presence of odours appeared to improve label perception and have the potential to promote healthy food choices.
Multisensory integration
“Our study demonstrates the importance of multisensory integration for label processing and provides a valuable foundation for developing more effective labelling strategies to promote healthier eating behaviour,” read the study’s significance statement.
Schicker and Freiherr called for further investigation into the detailed mechanisms of odour and statement interactions within the relevant brain areas, especially for labels that evoke negatives expectations. The full report was published in The Journal of Neuroscience.
More than a third of Brits struggle to interpret food labels, while less than half feel current labels provide sufficient information for making healthy food choices, according to new research.
The new study from food standards and testing firm NSF found that 36% of UK consumers struggled to interpret food labels, including nutritional information and sustainability metrics.
Meanwhile, new research has found that health claims influence the food and beverage purchasing decisions of the majority of consumers, but are most likely to resonate with younger people.
