Thai Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Different Front-of-Package Nutrition Labels

Abstract

This research study focuses on the willingness to pay for food products that have different front-of-package
(FOP) nutrition labels, namely include the monochrome Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA) label, the colorcoded
GDA label, and the traffic light label. While there has been a proposal to adopt the traffic light label,
Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health currently requires five types of snacks to display the monochrome GDA
label. The nth price auction was the method employed in this experiment to elicit the willingness to pay from
seventy two Thai consumers. The participants had to bid for two types of seaweed and two types of
almonds, affixed with three different types of FOP labels or a plain label. The grilled and fried seaweeds
contain different amounts of fat, whilst the unsalted and salted almonds contain different levels of sodium.
The results show that all of the FOP labels, including the monochrome GDA label, add price premiums to
both healthy and unhealthy foods. The traffic light label is effective in influencing consumers’ demand, since
consumers are willing to pay higher prices for healthier products. In addition, participants were also divided
into two groups, after providing one group with additional information about the meanings of the different FOP
labels. Under the traffic light label, the group provided with the extra information gave higher valuations on
healthier foods.