Food and Beverage Labeling Policies
Easy-to-understand food and beverage labels can help consumers identify which products are healthy and encourage them to choose healthier options. Our work uses randomized experiments to uncover promising strategies for designing effective food and beverage labels. We have found that food labels should describe health harms (e.g., “sugary drinks contribute to tooth decay”) or nutrients (e.g., “high in added sugar”), include icons and pictures, discourage unhealthy foods in addition to encouraging healthy foods, and use stronger causal language (e.g., “contributes to” vs. “may contribute to”).
We also use randomized trials and quasi-experiments to evaluate whether and how food labeling policies encourage consumers to buy healthier foods. We have found that well-designed food labels reduce purchases of unhealthy products like sugary drinks.
Food labeling policies can also spur retailers to reformulate their products to make them healthier. We have studied the mandatory calorie labels required on chain restaurant menus in the US. Our work showed that implementation of these labels led retailers to introduce more low-calorie items to their menus but did not lead to major changes in the calorie content of existing items.
Featured Articles
Cost-effectiveness of mandating calorie labels on prepared foods in supermarkets. Grummon, AH, Barrett, JL, Block, JP, McCulloch, S, Bolton, A, Dupuis, R, Petimar, J, and Gortmaker, SL. Am J Prev Med., 2025; 68(2): 300-310. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2024.10.007
Evaluating text, icon, and graphic nutrition labels: An eye tracking experiment with Latino adults in the US. Hall MG, Grummon AH, Whitesell C, et al. Appetite. 2025;204:107745. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2024.107745
Front-of-package food labels and perceived weight stigmatization: A randomized clinical trial. D’Angelo Campos, A, Grummon, AH, Ng, SW, Puhl, R, Golden, SD, & Hall, MG. JAMA Network Open. 2025; 8(6): e2516821. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.16821
Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Health Warnings and Purchases: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Grummon AH, Taillie LS, Golden SD, Hall MG, Ranney LM, Brewer NT. Am J Prev Med. 2019 Nov;57(5):601-610. doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2019.06.019. Epub 2019 Oct 2.
Nutrient Warnings on Unhealthy Foods. Hall MG, Grummon AH. JAMA. 2020 Oct 27;324(16):1609-1610. doi: 10.1001/jama.2020.18941.
Health warnings and beverage purchase behavior: Mediators of impact. Grummon AH, Brewer NT. Ann Behav Med. 2020;54(9):691-702. doi:10.1093/abm/kaaa011.
Effects of 4 Interpretive Front-of-Package Labeling Systems on Hypothetical Beverage and Snack Selections: A Randomized Clinical Trial. Grummon AH, Gibson LA, Musicus AA, Stephens-Shields AJ, Hua SV, Roberto CA. JAMA Network Open. 2023;6(9):e2333515. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.33515.