Environmental Labelling in a Virtual Supermarket

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Diet, Healthy; Food Selection
• Interventions: Behavioral: Labelling

• Registration Number: NCT04909372
• Lead Sponsor: Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l'Alimentation

Brief Summary

A 2-arm randomised control trial (with and without labels) will be conducted to test the effects of an environmental label on food choices in a virtual supermarket. A sample of 130 participants will take part in two shopping tasks: 1/ selection of 3 products to prepare a home-made dish, and 2/ selection of a ready-to-eat dish. These two tasks will be repeated for two scenarios: 1/ participants will be asked to select the foods for usual meals, and 2/ participants will be asked to select the foods for environmentally-friendly meals. This experimental design will allow to compare food choices in the presence vs. the absence of an environmental label and to investigate whether the label is informative and likely to help individuals to choose more environmental-friendly food options when explicitly asked to do so.

Detailed Description

See attached protocol documents

Study Timeline

• Study First Submitted: 2021-05-24
• Study Start: 2021-05-25
• Primary Completion: 2021-05-25
• Study First Submitted QC: 2021-05-27
• Study First Posted: 2021-06-01
• Study Completion: 2021-06-11
• Status Verified: 2022-03
• Last Update Submitted: 2022-03-08
• Last Update Posted: 2022-03-09

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 133

Inclusion Criteria

• Responsible for a substantial proportion of household grocery shopping
• Fluent in French

Exclusion Criteria

• Dietary restrictions (vegetarian, vegan, allergies, intolerance, ...)
• Uncorrected eye problems
• Known symptoms of nausea and dizziness when wearing a virtual reality headset

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Environmental labelling	Labelling	Food products with an environmental label in the virtual supermarket.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Environmental impact of the food items selected	15 minutes (the time frame denotes time taken to make the food choice task and there is no follow up)	The environmental impact of the food selection will be calculated using the Product Environmental Footprint score for 100g of products throughout their life cycle.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Level of processing of the food items selected	15 minutes (the time frame denotes time taken to make the food choice task and there is no follow up)	The level of processing of the food selection will be estimated using a food classification system based on food processing (NOVA).
Familiarity for the food items selected	15 minutes (the time frame denotes time taken to make the food choice task and there is no follow up)	The familiarity for each food selected will be assessed using a discrete scale from 1 (never purchased) to 5 (very often purchased).
Nutritional quality of the food items selected	15 minutes (the time frame denotes time taken to make the food choice task and there is no follow up)	The nutritional quality of the food selection will be calculated using the score from the British Food Standards Agency nutrient profiling system (FSA score).
Liking for the food items selected	15 minutes (the time frame denotes time taken to make the food choice task and there is no follow up)	The liking for each food selected will be assessed using a discrete scale from 1 (I don't like it at all) to 10 (I like it very much).
Price of the food items selected	15 minutes (the time frame denotes time taken to make the food choice task and there is no follow up)	Price of the food selection will be calculated per 100 kcal.

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l'Alimentation; 🇫🇷 Dijon, France