Consumer awareness and food buying behaviour towards food labels in Palanpur city

Food labels present a set of vital information such as date of expiry, nutritional data to the consumers which influence their purchasing. The present study was conducted to assess the consumer awareness and food buying behavior towards food labels in Palanpur city. A questionnaire was used to collect information from three supermarkets viz D-mart, Osia, and Harshidh Mall were selected. Total 1000 respondents were approached for the study and approximately 333 respondents from each supermarket were interviewed. The data were analyzed using SPSS Package to determine associations between various socio-demographic factors and the use of food label information. The study findings indicate that a significant majority of consumers falling within the age bracket of 21 to 30 years exhibited particular demographic characteristics. Specifically, a substantial proportion of these consumers were graduates, employed individuals, with a monthly income ranging from Rs 30,000 to Rs 50,000. According to a recent survey, 55.8% of customers have bought packaged food, and 85.2% of them were aware of food labels and their impact on nutrition. 92% of respondents agreed that food labels are a helpful tool. While 42.8% of customers always read the label on the package before buying the product, 62.3% of respondents suggested that food label information is very important. However, 47% of respondents feel that the amount of information on labels is too much. The survey also found that 86.5% of customers looked at nutrition information on the package before buying a product, and 68.6% of respondents believed that nutritional warnings on the label are truthful. Furthermore, 80.6% of respondents understood nutritional information, and 62.3% agreed that the provided information is accurate. 67.4% of respondents understood the text size and nutritional layout on food labels. The survey also revealed that 88.3% of respondents considered themselves healthy, while 53.8% of them were suffering from obesity. Finally, 89.1% of respondents looked at the expiry date before buying the product. Correlation - All demographic characteristics have positive and significant effect on nutritional information. The relationship between frequency of truth fulness of nutritional warning of food labels and all demographic characteristic had highly significant effect on truth fulness of nutritional information provided on packed food.