14E-19 |
Effects of health messages on consumer behavior towards functional foods |
R. P. TERATANAVAT and N. H. HOOKER. Dept. of Agricultural, Environmental & Development Economics, Ohio State Univ., 2120 Fyffe Rd., 244 Agricultural Administration Bldg., Columbus, OH 43210-1067 Functional food has become a topic of increasing importance for the food industry over the past decade, despite the lack of a legal definition by FDA. The main characteristic of a functional food that distinguishes it from traditional food is the potential health benefit, which can be considered to be a credence attribute of product quality. This characteristic may only be observed in the long term and cannot be easily assessed by consumers even after consumption. This results in an imperfect information environment for health benefits. Producers have full knowledge while consumers do not. Hence, the government controls the provision of health claims on product labels to avoid such market failures. The objective of this study is to examine the effect of health claims on product label/advertising to changes in consumer attitudes and behaviors in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the provision of health claim to a market with credence attribute goods. It also determines whether different message content and source creditability are important factors that influence consumers' purchasing decision. The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and the social judgement theory are the main theories in this study. Computer-based assessments of consumer behavior and an online survey are conducted using a 1,000 person population from the Ohio State University community. Preliminary results indicate that consumers use health-related information in the process of decision making when purchasing food products. In addition, consumers perceive and react differently to two types of health claims currently allowed, structure/function claim and risk reduction claim, and to different information sources such as government, industry, and research institution. From the result, it is important for the government to take a role in setting up labeling standards and restrictions to ensure that consumers have access to health-related information while they are protected from unsafe products and misleading claims.
Session 14E, Nutraceuticals & Functional Foods: General I
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