Are Food Allergen Advisory Statements Really Warnings? Variation in Consumer Preferences and Consumption Decisions

Abstract

The authors surveyed consumers for preferences on allergen advisory statements on food labels (N = 1,243). They also conducted an experiment to assess how consumers use advisory statements (N = 4,049) to make food consumption decisions. Results show that food allergic individuals, including caregivers to food allergic individuals, and a control group of nonallergic people preferred “Allergen Information: May Contain …” over three other statements tested. The experiment revealed measurable differences among the statements in how they are used to make food consumption decisions. Statements rated as more believable and more helpful also received higher ratings on a “likelihood of eating/serving” measure.