Consumer understanding and preferences for different nutrition information panel formats

The study was conducted to assess the level of understanding and the ability to extract information from a nutrition information panel (NIP) among women (n = 232, 20-59 years) in the Klang Valley, an urban area in Malaysia. The study involved the currently used format in Malaysia and three other formats, namely (i) based on Guideline Daily Amount (GDA), (ii) Multiple Traffic Light (MTL) and (iii) combination of GDA/MTL. Four hypermarkets were chosen for the face-to-face interview using a questionnaire. Subjects were selected using a convenient sampling method. The mean score for level of understanding was the highest for the current format (3.46 ± 1.12) compared to the other three tested formats (GDA = 3.09 ± 1.03, MTL = 2.72 ± 0.97, GDA/MTL combination 3.09 ± 1.36). However, most of the respondents (68.1%) would prefer the current NIP format to be changed due to difficulty in understanding (43.1%) and perceived the nutrition information to be insufficient (23.3%) and over simplified (21.6%). When other NIP formats were introduced, GDA format was the most preferred (mean score 3.52 ± 0.84) compared to the other formats (MTL = 3.41 ± 0.98; GDA/ MTL combination = 3.29 ± 0.91), including the current format used in Malaysia (3.16 ± 0.85). These findings suggest that the preferred NIP format does not necessarily lead to correct interpretation of the nutrition information. The current format should be further promoted and explained to the public to improve its usage and consumer understanding.