The labeling of added sugar on food labels, which became mandatory in the U.S. by 2021, may reduce demand for and consumption of certain types of food, according to a study led by researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.
The study, published in the journal Agribusiness, analyzed retail scanner data from 2015 to 2020 to examine how the addition of added sugar labels affected the way consumers shopped for and consumed yogurt and cookie products.
The researchers found that these labels reduced consumer demand for products with higher added sugar in both product categories.
"Giving people clearer information about added sugar can change purchasing decisions, and it also means policymakers may have more targeted options," said Yizao Liu, associate professor of agricultural economics and co-author of the study. "Because added sugar is now clearly identified, policies can focus more specifically on added sugar rather than treating all sugar the same way."
In contrast to sugars naturally occurring in foods, added sugar refers to sugars added during the manufacturing and processing of products such as sugar-sweetened beverages, desserts, breads and other foods. Consuming high amounts of these added sugars has been linked to many negative health consequences, such as obesity and related chronic conditions. It's also been connected with diluting the overall nutrient density of the diet and increasing total daily energy intake, the researchers said.
In 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Association announced that large food manufacturers would be required to update their nutrition labels to include the amount of sugar added to their products by 2020, while small manufacturers needed to do so by 2021. Liu explained that before the change, consumers could see total sugar on nutrition labels but whether the sugar was added or naturally occurring was not specified.
"The updated label made that distinction visible for the first time," she said. "A lot of previous research focused on whether people notice nutrition labels, understand them or say they would use them. We wanted to look at what actually happens in the marketplace."
For the study, the researchers analyzed the national NielsenIQ Retail Scanner Data, which included price and sales information in the United States from 2015 to 2020 - capturing periods both before and after the nutritional label change. Their final data set included 3,528 markets, with 312 yogurt products from seven major brands and 430 cookie products from 15 major brands.
"We decided to focus on yogurt and cookie products because they are quite different products and consumers may think about their nutritional value differently," Liu said.
The researchers found that once labels were updated, consumers were less likely to buy products with higher amounts of added sugar in both yogurt and cookies.
The researchers also ran several different model simulations to estimate how the new labels may affect shoppers' actual consumption of sugar, as well as how a sugar tax applied only to products with added sugar might affect consumer behavior.
After running the simulations, the researchers found that the label change appeared to have reduced sugar consumption overall. In their model, without the updated label, total sugar consumption would have been about 4% higher for yogurt and 11% higher for cookies.
"Another interesting finding was that a tax aimed specifically at added sugar could reduce added-sugar consumption about as much as a broader sugar tax, while giving consumers more incentive to switch to lower-added-sugar products rather than simply buying less of the entire category," Liu said.
According to the researchers, there could be several implications of the findings. For example, policymakers may want to continue enhancing nutrition labels with the goal of empowering consumers to make smart dietary decisions. Additionally, since the findings suggest a consumer aversion to added sugar, public awareness initiatives could continue to highlight the health risks of high sugar consumption.
"Our study focused on yogurt and cookies, so it would be useful to see whether the same patterns show up in other foods and over a longer period of time," Liu said. "It would also be interesting to study how food companies respond, for example by reformulating products to contain less added sugar."
Yuxiang Zhang, doctoral candidate in energy, environmental and food economics at Penn State, co-authored the paper.
