Nutrition and health claim labelling of food: Understanding the unique relationship between consumers, companies and legal instruments involved

Sammanfattning: Problem formulation: Recent results from the European Food Information Council’s consumer research on nutrition information and food labelling revealed that most consumers have little understanding of the nutrition information found on food products, feel that there is little authority regulating these matters and wish for a more trusted source of information and regulation and lastly it was found that consumers accept their limitations and have little motivation to even read or learn about nutrition information. Thus what are the reactions of the various legal authorities to this problem? How are food retailers and producers responding to the needs of the consumer? How are consumers then reacting to these two players in the industry and the changes they are making? Purpose: The purpose of this research is to gain new perspective and a better understanding of relationship between consumers, companies and legal instruments in relation to nutrition and health claim labelling of food products. Method: The nature of this multi-disciplinary research has led to the study of all three areas, business administration (containing consumer behaviour) and business law, which are contained in this paper. Functional foods are used as examples of nutrition and health claim labelling, as well as a review and some comparison between the legal systems of the EU, Sweden and the UK. The research carried out contains all three elements in which various past academic reports, studies, books, legal documents and articles were gathered for analysis. Most secondary research found was lacking in the area of how companies are meeting the challenges of food labelling, thus a company interview was chosen to fill in the information gaps. Conclusions: There is a clear need for more open lines of communication between consumers, food producing companies and food authorities. Nutrition and health claim labelling play a large role in the food industry today, and with current trends as they are, it will continue to be in the future. The condition of this role will only improve if the three industry players work together to form more open communication, harmonised legislation and further research on ways of better communicating a clear and credible message of health to the public.