Consumers will pay more for `clean label' foods
Spurred by the “if you can't say it, don't eat it” school of thought, “clean label” foods are becoming the expectation rather than the exception. Consumers are increasingly seeking out clean label foods bearing short lists of recognizable, natural ingredients.
People perceive clean label convenience foods as more healthy than those with ingredient lists running the length of the package, including such tongue twisters as azodicarbonamide, butylated hydroxyanisole or calcium disodiumethylenedia As a result, clean labels may escape the stigma of other processed foods.
“Clean label definitely gives this idea that yes, this product is as natural as it can possibly be,” says Karina Gallardo, a Washington State University (WSU) professor of economics and author of a new study examining consumer preferences in the journal Agribusiness.
In the study, Gallardo, fellow WSU economist Jill McCluskey and Kara Grant, an economist at Missouri Western University, found that people will pay more for ready-to-eat meals containing few ingredients. What's more, many are inclined to buy clean label foods made with new technologies that help limit the use of artificial or chemical components.
A body of literature shows that people consider new food technologies “risky or unhealthy, or even unethical,” she explains. But at the same time, they expect to see an ever-growing number of clean label convenience foods in grocery stores — foods that require innovative technologies to produce.
“Consumers demand different types of attributes, for example: Foods that are healthy; foods that are not produced using pesticides or chemicals; foods that are in agreement with environmental stewardship,” says Gallardo. “So it's this sort of misalignment between expectations and what can possibly be done with current technologies.”
The researchers asked participants about microwave-assisted thermal sterilization — which uses heat to kill pathogenic bacteria, like a microwave oven — as an alternative to the status quo. More than half (56 per cent) of the study participants preferred clean label ready-toeat meals marked with the name of the new technology.
In the eyes of consumers, all technologies are not equal, says Gallardo. Much depends on the name of the technology and how it's being communicated. If a label mentions genetic modification, for example, “there is an instant rejection.” The fact that the word microwave appears in the name of the technology they presented to participants helped to quell doubt.