Navigating the Grocery Store Aisle

for food with those labels. Consumers were also asked about their attitudes toward healthy eating (using the General Health Interest subscale), their habits of looking for information on food packages (“How often do you look for the following information?”), their nutrition knowledge, their trust in the food domain (“How much trust do you have in the following institutions?”), and their preference for food nat uralness (six items). The labels “GMO - free,” “palm oil - free,” “gluten free” and “lactose free” were correlated with perceived healthiness and a willingness to pay a price premium. Intention to pay a price premium was lower for food labeled “lactose - free” and “gluten - free” than for food with the other labels. Consumers who said they looked often for information on packages, preferred naturalness, and were younger were more likely to think that products labeled “free from” were healthier. Those with more nutrition knowledge were more likely to consider palm oil-free products as healthier and less likely to consider lactose- and gluten-free food healthier. Significant predictors of intention to pay a price premium were perceived healthiness of the label, information seeking, preference for food naturalness, and nutrition knowledge. [1] There are several waves of the American Trends Panel relevant to GMO research. Hasell and Stroud (2020) relied on the previously unpublished Wave 11 (Fielded between June 2, 2015-June 29, 2015) and Wave 12 (Fielded between August 11,2015-September 8, 2015) for their perceptions and knowledge of GMOs, as well as Wave 6 (fielded between Aug. 11 – Sept. 3, 2014) for science literacy. The Pew reports on GMO health and science beliefs come from Wave 17 (fielded May 10 – June 6, 2016) and Wave 34 (fielded April 26-May 6, 2018).

[2] This 76% consists of the 31% who think it is very likely and 45% who think it is fairly likely.

[3] This 63% consists of the 25% that think it is very likely and 38% that think it is fairly likely.

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