Environmental Labelling in a Virtual Supermarket

Impact of Environmental Labelling on Food Choices : a Randomized Controlled Trial in a Virtual Reality Supermarket

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.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Diet, Healthy; Food Selection
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Labelling

Detailed Description

See attached protocol documents

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 133
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• France
  • Dijon, France, 21000
    • Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l'Alimentation

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

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 Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: No labelling; Food products without any label in the virtual supermarket.
Experimental: Environmental labelling; Food products with an environmental label in the virtual supermarket.	Behavioral: Labelling; Food products in the virtual supermarket will display an environmental label on their packaging, from A (lowest impact) to E (highest impact). The label categories are based on the Product Environmental Footprint, a score recommended by the European Commission that evaluates the environmental impact of a food product based on 16 indicators calculated throughout the life cycle of the products (e.g., climate change in kg carbon dioxide eq, marine eutrophication in kg N eq, land and water use or acidification in mol H+ eq). Instructions will introduce and explain the environmental label to the participants as "In the virtual supermarket, each product will have an environmental label. This label describes whether a product had a negative impact on the environment (green house gaz emissions, water resources depletion, etc.) from A, lowest impact, to E, highest impact.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

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

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Familiarity for the food items selected	The familiarity for each food selected will be assessed using a discrete scale from 1 (never purchased) to 5 (very often purchased).	15 minutes (the time frame denotes time taken to make the food choice task and there is no follow up)
Liking for the food items selected	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).	15 minutes (the time frame denotes time taken to make the food choice task and there is no follow up)
Nutritional quality of the food items selected	The nutritional quality of the food selection will be calculated using the score from the British Food Standards Agency nutrient profiling system (FSA score).	15 minutes (the time frame denotes time taken to make the food choice task and there is no follow up)
Level of processing of the food items selected	The level of processing of the food selection will be estimated using a food classification system based on food processing (NOVA).	15 minutes (the time frame denotes time taken to make the food choice task and there is no follow up)
Price of the food items selected	Price of the food selection will be calculated per 100 kcal.	15 minutes (the time frame denotes time taken to make the food choice task and there is no follow up)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l'Alimentation
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Lucile Marty, PhD, Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l'Alimentation

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): May 25, 2021
• Primary Completion (Actual): May 25, 2021
• Study Completion (Actual): June 11, 2021

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: May 24, 2021
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 27, 2021
• First Posted (Actual): June 1, 2021

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 9, 2022
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 8, 2022
• Last Verified: March 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: labelling; food choice
• Other Study ID Numbers: EIPH0126

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: Share on Open Science Framework
• IPD Sharing Time Frame: On publication, indefinitely
• IPD Sharing Access Criteria: Open website
• IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type: STUDY_PROTOCOL; SAP

Study Data/Documents

1. Study Protocol
2. Statistical Analysis Plan
3. Individual Participant Data Set

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No