Office Hours: Anita Rao on How Voluntary Food Labels Impact Consumer Behavior

Consumers often rely on food labels to make informed decisions about the products they purchase. While some labeling standards are regulated by policymakers, many claims remain voluntary.

In a recent study published in Marketing Science, Anita Rao, associate professor of marketing at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, and co-author Raluca Ursu (New York University) examine the impact of voluntary food labels on both consumer behavior and company practices. The paper reveals that labels like “no high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)” are often used to highlight specific product features while obscuring other important details, leading to less healthy choices.

Here, Rao discusses her findings and their implications for businesses, consumers, and policymakers.

What inspired you to investigate the impact of voluntary food labels on consumer behavior?

While walking down grocery aisles in supermarkets, you often notice various product claims. This makes one wonder whether these claims highlight something we should be worried about, for example, if a product states “no HFCS,” should we be worried about high-fructose corn syrup in our food, and if so, why? This curiosity led us down the path to learn more about what voluntary labels do to consumer behavior: are they informing us, or are they obscuring something?

Your study focuses on the “no HFCS” label—why did you choose this specific label, and what makes it particularly relevant to current policy discussions?

HFCS is a caloric sweetener that was introduced as an alternative to sugar due to its low cost. However, it soon became controversial when some correlational studies linked it to rising obesity rates in the United States, prompting companies to label their products as containing no HFCS. Today, the scientific consensus is that both HFCS and sugar are equally harmful, and singling out any one caloric sweetener can be misleading.

Moreover, because HFCS is a direct replacement to sugar, it makes for a clean setting to study the sugar content of products. Focusing on calories or fat might be incorrect because not all calories are harmful. Calories from sources such as whole grains or even certain types of fat can be beneficial. Added sugars, on the other hand, have been shown to be unambiguously harmful to health.

How did you conduct the consumer experiment, and what methods did you use to measure search and purchase behavior?

We created an online shopping website, similar to the aisles you would see when shopping online for different food categories. We developed one for cereal and another for ketchup. Consumers could browse the website, click on various products, and access additional details about ingredients and nutritional information. These clicks allowed us to track which products consumers explored and whether they sought more nutritional information. Once they made a decision, they could add items to their cart and make a purchase. Participants had a 1-in-15 chance of actually receiving the product they selected, incentivizing them to make genuine choices rather than clicking randomly.

We tested three main conditions: a control condition, a labeled condition where some products displayed a “no HFCS” label, and a decoy treatment with another label, such as “gluten-free” for ketchup and “no artificial colors” for cereal, for the same labeled products in the main treatment condition. This allowed us to observe whether consumers in the “no HFCS” condition searched for and purchased products differently.

Your research suggests that voluntary labels may lead some consumers to make nutritionally worse choices. Which types of consumers are most affected and why?

For the ketchup category, we found that most people are impacted. On average, people buy more sugary products and search less in the presence of the voluntary label. We believe almost everyone is affected, perhaps because ketchup is not typically thought of as containing a lot of sugar; in fact, a quarter of a bottle of ketchup is just sugar.

For the cereal category, we found people with less knowledge about labels and product healthiness, for example, those who are unsure whether products carrying the “no HFCS” label are healthier, ended up purchasing products with more sugar and searching less. In the control condition (without labels), participants were not buying these sugary products, implying that the label influenced purchase in a worse manner.

Based on your findings, should voluntary labeling practices be more tightly regulated?

Yes, potentially. One option is to standardize information, requiring all eligible firms to make the same claim to ensure transparency. For example, if one firm labels a product as “no cholesterol,” consumers might assume that other firms in the same category contain cholesterol, even if they do not. Standardizing information could prevent such misconceptions. Another alternative would be to state other relevant facts upfront, such as sugar content or the use of artificial ingredients, to give consumers a more complete picture. In this case, if firms choose to voluntarily display a “no HFCS” label, they should also showcase the sugar content of their product in equal prominence.

How can consumers better navigate food labels to make more informed decisions, given the potential for voluntary labels to be misleading?

Consumers should take such claims on the front of the box with a pinch of salt. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If a claim catches your eye, make sure to turn the package around and read the complete ingredient list and nutrition facts before making a purchase. With so many products trying to grab attention, we see so many claims popping up with purported health benefits. We should stop and ask ourselves: Is this true? Do I really need to consume this product to get the health benefit? Are there other ways I can achieve the same benefit? This is hard to do, but once it becomes a habit, it becomes easier!