Questionnaire: Food labels and act of purchase

Authors: Céline ARTICO and Florence KERVEILLANT

In our study, we were interested in the influence of food labels during the act of purchase. We wished to know if consumption of food products was influenced by the presence of labels on packaging and/or by the image that consumers have of those labels. Through our questionnaire, our goal is to study the habits of consumption and the purchases of people as well as their perception of labels. To have a typology of the person interrogated, we made an MCA and a HCPC.

In our Multiple Correspondence Analysis, the first four dimensions represent 35.4% of the total inertia. Each axis of this MCA opposes different people and behaviours. Here is a small description of those four axes.

  • For the first axis, students and individuals belonging to large families are opposed. Students realize their food shopping exclusively in hypermarket without facilitating the purchase of certified products and, in opposition, families buy in hypermarket (except for certified alcoholic drinks in specialized stores)
  • The second axis opposes people impacted by environment and buying certified products, who realize their shopping at the market or in specialized store, to people who do not take part in the waste recycling and who buy their food essentially in hard discount stores
  • The third axis characterizes large families and households of 2-4 persons. For families, labels are no decisive criteria of purchase in opposition to households which are more influenced by labels
  • To finish, the knowledge and the image separate the individuals represented on the fourth axis. Students have a good knowledge and a good image whereas employees are not very aware

The four axes are really interesting and allow to see the different criteria which separate peoples

The Hierarchical Clustering on Principal Components identifies four types of buyers:

  • A first group, the people who realize their purchases in hypermarket exclusively and for whom certified products are not included in the daily diet
  • Another group composed of individuals quite old (56-70 years). They realize their food purchases in specialized stores and at the market for a monthly budget of 351€ to 500€. Certified products are part of their daily diet and they give a real importance to labels
  • The third group includes individuals doing exclusively their shopping in hard discount stores and for whom superior price is unjustified. They are suspicious and un-involved
  • The fourth group gathers individuals doing essentially their purchases in supermarket

To conclude, labels’ influence is nuanced during the act of purchase. Most of the time, people are influenced by labels when then know them and also when they are involved in ecological matters. People who are not affected by labels are the ones who have a negative image because of a lack of knowledge or because of their a priori.

Find here the data set and the R script:

The results of the ENMCA() function are the following:

Beware the results of HCPC() and ENMCA() are not quite the same since the data are ventilated and the method of classification is a bit different.