Online food displays often lack legible information about food ingredients, allergens, etc.
of ConsumerAffairsA new study by researchers at Tufts University finds that many online grocery stores don't show important information about the food they sell, like nutrition facts and ingredients. This makes it hard for people to make healthy choices and can even be dangerous for people with allergies.
The problem
-
Missing information: Online grocery stores often don't show the same information that's on food packages in the store.
-
Lots of marketing: It's easy to find marketing claims, but hard to find actual facts about the food.
Why this matters
-
Hard to make healthy choices: People need to know what's in their food to make healthy choices.
-
Dangerous for allergies: People with allergies need to know about ingredients to avoid dangerous reactions.
What can be done
-
New rules: The government could make new rules requiring online stores to show this information.
-
Public database: The government could create a database of food information that online stores could use.
In the meantime
-
Check the manufacturer's website: You can often find more information on the food maker's website.
It's important for online grocery stores to make it easy for people to find the information they need to make informed choices about their food, the study concluded.
About the study
When shopping online for groceries, you maytry to pick healthy options based on the information provided by the online retailer. You can tell that the products youre choosing are organic, non-GMO, or Fair Trade Certified. But in many cases, you cant find the nutrition facts, ingredient list, or even a list of allergens.
A new, comprehensive study of online grocery retailers shows this problem is pervasive, to the detriment of public health and safety in the U.S.
Thestudy, led by researchers at theFriedman School of Nutrition Science and Policyat Tufts University and published inPublic Health Nutritionon Oct. 17, shows a lack of present, accessible, and legible information about the food consumers buy, while marketing claims are still prominent.
The absence of accessible food labeling has tangible consequences for public health, said Julia Sharib, first author on the study and manager of research and communications for the Food is Medicine Institute at the Friedman School.
The government has clearly intended that you should be able to know certain things about your food, saidSean Cash, senior author on the study. The way weve regulated that in the United States is to put that information on the packaging. But that hasnt carried over to online spaces very well.
A lack of information
An earlier pilot studyof 10 food products across nine online grocery retailers found similar deficiencies. That study found that information required by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about food, such as nutrition facts, an ingredient list, and an allergen list were often absent, and were less present than marketing claims.
The lack of information accessible in online settings reveals a major gap in federal regulations, Cash said. While food manufacturers are required by the FDA to present certain information on food packaging, online grocery retailers arent required to reproduce that information on their websites.
That means that consumers wont necessarily be able to access information about calories, nutrition content, or allergens when buying their groceries online.
Since 2022, there were some reasons to think that retailers would step up their game. First, online grocery shopping is here to stayrecent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) indicates that 20% of Americans buy their groceries online, while over 80% have done so in the past three years.
The trend has been aided by a drop in online food prices relative to in-store shopping: Prices are now roughly comparable between in-store and online groceries, which hasnt always been the case.
Second, online food retailers could have responded to the growing market by deciding to get out ahead of any regulatory action. We thought there might be practical changes in what food retailers are doing, Cash said.
We, and others, have been pushing for change, Cash said. But the FDA has not yet taken regulatory action to close the gap.
Study findings
The new study gives a more complete look at the issue and analyzes 60 food products across 10 different online grocery retailers. The results show the trend has persisted: Each FDA-required label was present, accessible, and legible for just 35.1% of products.
Marketing claims and labels, though, were present for 83.7% of products. Thats what Cash finds unpalatable. Its far easier to find marketing thats trying to sell you the food rather than the information that our society agrees should be there to tell you about your food, he said.
We saw many cases in which a nutrition facts label, for example, was only accessible after scrolling through a dozen marketing images, essentially forcing any consumers seeking that label to interact with marketing language, Sharib said.
Go to the source
The best way consumers can get the FDA-required information is to visit the websites of the food manufacturers themselves, Cash said. On those sites, nutrition information and ingredient lists are much more likely to be present and legible. Cash cautions that food labeling found in product reviews can be helpful, but may also be out of date or inaccurate.
And ultimately, the onus should be on regulators and the industry to provide important information to consumers, Cash said. Putting the burden on consumers is not what we should be doing, he said.
Photo Credit: Consumer Affairs News Department Images
Posted: 2024-10-17 20:13:49
