Making sense of the “clean label” trends: A review of consumer food choice behavior and discussion of industry implications
Graphical abstract
Introduction
During the last century, industrialized countries have overcome lack of food security with the key contribution of agrifood industrialization (Lusk, 2016, Meneses et al., 2014). Food processing has played a crucial role as it allowed extending the shelf life of food products, reduced food losses and waste, as well as improved nutrient availability and optimization (Augustin et al., 2016, Fellows, 2004, Weaver et al., 2014). However, day-to-day consumer perception focuses on other aspects than these achievements. In modern societies, the increasingly globalized markets and greater processing in the food chain has contributed to a perceived distance and knowledge gap between people and food manufacturers (e.g. how food is produced, where is it produced, etc.) (Princen, 1997, Weis, 2007).
Industrialization and globalisation go hand in hand with a higher and more man-made risk, which increases citizens' perception of risks of modernity (Beck, 1992). For instance, food contamination accidents have affected Europe in the last decades, such as BSE1 and dioxin (Bánáti, 2011, Knowles et al., 2007). Consumers are concerned about the heavy use of pesticides in the conventional and intensive agricultural practices (Aktar, Sengupta, & Chowdhury, 2009), the use of artificial ingredients, additives or colourants such as E133 (Lucová, Hojerová, Pažoureková, & Klimová, 2013), and the adoption of controversial food technologies like GMOs2 (Grunert, Bredahl, & Scholderer, 2003). This has prompted consumers to become skeptical or worried about adverse health effects entailed in this food system (Meneses et al., 2014). Moreover, the growing public concern about the contribution of the food system to climate change and its overall negative effects on sustainability (Godfray et al., 2010) have led consumers to question the environmental and social consequences of food production (Asioli et al., 2014, Caputo et al., 2013).
Consumer's choose foods to be satiated and fed with nutrients, other important drivers are flavor and price (Lynn Jayne Frewer and van Trijp, 2007, MacFie, 2007). However, it is often proposed that today's food consumption in industrialized societies is particularly affected by three major trends: health concerns, sustainability, and convenience (Grunert, 2013). Health concerns are driven by consumers' affluence, but also explained by the increasing number of food and lifestyle related diseases (i.e. diabetes, obesity, etc.) (Kearney, 2010, Weis, 2007) and allergies and intolerances towards some specific food products or components such as gluten. These factors have encouraged consumers to be more interested in healthy food products that support healthy lifestyles into older ages and reduce the risk of certain diseases. Sustainability interest is explained by the growing awareness of environmental pollution caused by conventional agricultural practices. This has resulted most prominently in an increased expansion of organic agriculture and markets (Aschemann, Hamm, Naspetti, & Zanoli, 2007) and might also explain why consumers are looking for e.g. ‘local food’ products (food miles) (Adams & Salois, 2010) and are willing to pay higher prices for water-saving products (Krovetz, 2016). Convenience relates to the number of meals that are eaten out-of-home or home-delivered compared to home-made. This number has dramatically increased during the last decades (Lachat et al., 2012), which signifies that consumers are interested in added characteristics of food products that save time (e.g. frozen food, ready meals, microwavable, etc.).
The trends of healthiness and sustainability have triggered consumers into considering which components are used in the food products that they eat in everyday life (Euromonitor International, 2016). A new trend in food products has emerged, which is often summarized under the umbrella of the so-called “clean label” (Cheung et al., 2016, Joppen, 2006, Varela and Fiszman, 2013, Zink, 1997) and has been taken up by a multitude of food industry stakeholders (Osborne, 2015). The term clean label itself appeared for the first time during the 1980s when consumers started to avoid the E-numbers3 listed on food labels because they were allegedly associated with negative health effects (Joppen, 2006). However, the use of the term clean label dramatically exploded ten years ago. One of the leading food science journals, “Food Technology Magazine,” cited the term “clean label” twice in 2000, 18 times in 2011 and 77 times in 2016 in their articles, clearly indicating a growing importance of the term (Swientik, 2017).
The food industry has started to respond to the increasing consumer demand of such clean label products by supplying food products that are perceived as ‘cleaner’ (Katz & Williams, 2011). For example, in 2010 Heinz tomato ketchup was reformulated to remove high fructose corn syrup from the ingredient list and was renamed as Simply Heinz (Katz & Williams, 2011). Recent data shows that during 2013, almost 27% of the new packaged food products launched in Europe had some sort of clean label (Ingredion, 2014).
Despite the increasing market shift towards clean label food products and a large number of different studies that have investigated goods carrying clean label, it is not yet clear what a clean label exactly means. So far, a jointly agreed upon definition or specific regulations/legislations does not exist (Busken, 2013, Joppen, 2006, Varela and Fiszman, 2013), leaving the interpretation as rather subjective for consumers and food practitioners. A clear definition of clean label that can improve understanding of consumer perception and behavior, guide manufacturers in food development and communication, and support policymakers' efforts in providing a targeted regulatory framework is needed (Katz & Williams, 2011). Moreover, to the best knowledge of the authors, a coherent overview of the factors that affect consumers' perception of food products that are related to the clean label trend does not exist (Cheung et al., 2016, Zink, 1997).
This paper reviews the literature from the last six years on consumers' perceptions and preferences of selected food categories understood as clean label products, aiming to (i) provide a holistic definition that integrates various understandings of clean label into one single definition; (ii) identify the main drivers that motivate consumers to choose clean label products, and (iii) derive implications for food manufacturers, policy makers and future research avenues. The overall goal of this paper is to advance the understanding of how the clean label trend is viewed by both consumers and food industry professionals and to advance research into this trend based on a common definition.
In Section 2, we briefly describe some important theoretical issues related to consumer behavior as background for understanding the basic processes of consumer decision making. Then, we suggest a definition of clean label based on consumption trends observed in various food markets and the underlying consumer behavior theory. We then outline the literature review methodology and present the results of the review on the factors that affect consumers' choice behavior for such products. The paper concludes with a discussion of industrial and policymakers' challenges, the implications of the findings, and future research needs and directions.
Section snippets
Consumer behavior theoretical background
Looking at related theories or theoretical terms can help understanding why consumers show an increasing interest in clean label, and it can help to understand the role that consumer perception plays in explaining this trend. We regard two distinctions as particularly relevant for explaining the consumer behavior driving the clean label trend. Firstly, we consider dual-processing theories which differentiate between two modes of processing called central and peripheral processing. Secondly, we
What is a “clean label”?
To date there is no an established, objective and common definition of what a clean label is, but rather several definitions or interpretations, often provided by market trend reports but not backed up by consumer behavior research or theory (Osborne, 2015). To give an example of how clean label appears conceptualized in media, one can cite Michael Pollan. He suggested in his famous recent book In Defence of Food that consumers should not: “…eat anything with more than five ingredients, or
Methodology
A literature search has been conducted by investigating the following four online catalogues: Scopus, Science Direct, AgEcon Search, and Web of Science. We used the following keywords or keyword combinations: “label”, “organic”, “natural”, “free from”, “artificial”, “additives”, “colourants”, “ingredients”, “clean label”, “consumers”, “perception”, “behavior”, “preference”, “choice”, and “food” in the title or the abstract. The review was restricted to English-language, peer-reviewed empirical
Clean label definition and consumer understanding
Across the three categories of food products pertaining to the clean label trend – organic, ‘natural’, and ‘free from’ artificial additives/ingredients – we found all the six categories of factors represented of the Mojet model (Köster, 2009), such as intrinsic and extrinsic product characteristics, biological and physiological, as well as psychological, situational and socio-cultural factors. Thus, as a first point, we can conclude that a broad diversity of drivers has been found to influence
Acknowledgements
Financial support from the European Commission (329761) through the Marie Curie Actions Intra European Fellowship (IEF), call FP/-PEOPLE-I2012-IEF – project title “Innovative Methodologies for New Food Product Development: combining Sensory Science and Experimental Economics – NEFOMET”. Nofima's authors also would like to thank the support of the Norwegian Foundation for Research Levy on Agricultural Products through the research program “FoodSMaCK, Spectroscopy, Modelling and Consumer
Author contributions
The authors' contributions were as follows: Daniele Asioli was the responsible for the overall manuscript, contributed to the introduction, design and literature review. Jessica Aschemann-Witzel contributed to the consumer behavior theory, clean label definition and discussion as well as the critical review of the manuscript. Vincenzina Caputo contributed to the discussion and the critical review of the manuscript. Azzurra Annunziata and Riccardo Vecchio contributed to the literature review and
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