IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/ajfand/334013.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Nutrition and health-related information disclosure on pre-packaged food products from local retail shops in Accra

Author

Listed:
  • Asalu, Geoffrey A
  • Axame, Wisdom K
  • Manu, Adom
  • Laar, Amos
  • Aryeetey, Richmond

Abstract

The prevalence of obesity and diet related non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are rapidly increasing in Africa. Consumption of pre-packaged foods is one of the main drivers of these NCDs. Pre-packaged foods tend to contain high levels of energy, fat, sugar, and salt, which are known risk factors for NCDs. Food labels can guide consumers to make informed healthy food choices. Therefore, it is important to analyze how health-related information is communicated on food labels. In Ghana, there is paucity of evidence on what health-related information is available to consumers of pre-packaged foods. This study describes health-related information on labelled pre-packaged foods sold in local retail shops in Accra. A cross-sectional survey and quantitative content analysis of food label information were employed in this study. Pre-packaged food labels photograph data were sourced from shops and content analyzed to describe their health-related information. Nutrition and health-related information were classified using the International Network for Food and Obesity/Non-Communicable Diseases Research, Monitoring and Action Support (INFORMAS) system. Three hundred and fifty-one (N=351) pre-packaged foods and non-alcoholic beverages were sampled, out of which 2.3% products were unlabelled. Out of 343 labelled products, 92% disclosed ingredient list information and 68.8% had nutrition declaration. Between the two nutrition labelling formats: Back-of-Pack (BOP) and Front of Pack (FOP), BOP was the dominant (87.3%) format. Various types of FOPs were identified however, Guidelines Daily Allowance (GDA) was the most common format. The study found that 18% of labelled pre-packaged foods carried nutrition claim and about 7% had a health claim. Most of the claims were written and the others were a combination of words, numbers, and pictures/symbols. This study has shown a high disclosure of health-related label information on pre-packaged food but information presentations on labels were not consistent. The insight gained from this study shows that the presentation of health-related label information does not meet the current recommendations of Codex and the benchmarks set out by INFORMAS in promoting a healthy food environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Asalu, Geoffrey A & Axame, Wisdom K & Manu, Adom & Laar, Amos & Aryeetey, Richmond, 2022. "Nutrition and health-related information disclosure on pre-packaged food products from local retail shops in Accra," African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development (AJFAND), African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development (AJFAND), vol. 22(02).
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:ajfand:334013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/334013/files/Asalu21780.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martinez, Stephen W., 2013. "Introduction of New Food Products With Voluntary Health- and Nutrition-Related Claims, 1989-2010," Economic Information Bulletin 145319, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bo Xiong & Daniel Sumner & William Matthews, 2014. "A new market for an old food: the U.S. demand for olive oil," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 45(S1), pages 107-118, November.
    2. Toole, Andrew & Kuchler, Fred, 2015. "Improving Health Through Nutrition Research: An Overview of the U.S. Nutrition Research System," Economic Research Report 197544, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    3. Kevin Randy Chemo Dzukou & Sabine Duvaleix & Karine Latouche, 2023. "Product innovation and export strategy," Post-Print hal-04452985, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:ajfand:334013. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.ajfand.net/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.