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Savage, Lucy

Nutritional and Food Sciences

2007

MS

Objective: The call for legislation mandating nutrition labeling of foods sold in food service establishments (FSEs), currently exempt from the Nutrition Education and Labeling Act, has grown with the continuing obesity trend and increased consumer spending on food bought for consumption outside the home. Research is lacking in this area leaving the impact of calorie labels on consumer buying behaviors unknown. The objective of this study was to determine the impact of calorie labels on food choices based on aggregate sales data in a university food service establishment. Methods: Subjects were patrons of Cook Commons dining hall on the University of Vermont's main campus. The numbers of sales of unlabeled versus labeled entrée items were recorded for two weeks; the first without calorie labels and the second with calorie labels. Low, medium and high tertiles were formed based on the entrées' calorie content. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks tests were used to compare 1) the total sales of entrée items between the two weeks, 2) dinner entrée item sales between the labeled week and the unlabeled week and 3) sales of each calorie tertile. Regression analysis was used to test for associations between sales and calorie content of items between the ULW and the LW within each calorie tertile. SPSS was used to perform the analyses and statistical significance was set at p50.05. Results: Sales of entrée items in the labeled week (LW) were not significantly different from the sales of entrée items in the unlabeled week (ULW) (p=0.657); sales of dinner entrée items in the LW were not significantly different from dinner entrée item sales in the ULW (p=0.380); and sales of entrée items in the low, medium and high calorie tertiles were not significantly different between the LW and the ULW respectively (p=0.866, p=0.476 and p=0.838). There were no significant associations between the difference in sales between the LW and the ULW and the calorie content of food items within the low calorie tertile (p=0.623), the medium calorie tertile (p=0.381) or the high calorie tertile (p=0.07). Conclusion: This research showed that calorie labels in a FSE did not modify consumer buying behavior towards lower calorie foods based on aggregate sales data.