Food addiction, information campaigns, and product reformulation. An industrial economics approach[Addiction alimentaire, campagnes informationnelles et reformulation des produits. Une approche d'économie industrielle]

The article proposes a theoretical model to analyze the impact of two public policies (public information campaigns (PIC) and Minimum Quality Standard (MSQ)), to encourage companies to reduce the level of harmful nutrients in their ultra-processed products. We compare the impact of these two policies on the strategies of firms (price, product reformulation), consumer health and the exclusion of some of them from the market. We also examine to what extent and under what conditions, the combination of these two policies is more effective in reducing the risk to consumer health than when they are applied alone. Our results show that the effectiveness of each policy depends on the level of addiction of consumers to the nutrient, the level of their sensitivity to the effect of food on their health and the intensity of public intervention (level of Information Campaigns (PIC) and/or level of MQ). The results suggest that, with regard to health risk, a CI policy alone is always better than a SQM policy alone when addiction is low. However, it only induces product reformulation if consumers' health sensitivity is low. On the other hand, when addiction is high, a SQM policy is always better than a CI policy alone. We also show that excessive price increases can limit health benefits, by leading to the exclusion of a certain number of consumers from the market. Finally, for a high level of addiction, the mixed policy (combining CI and SQM) appears to be the most effective in improving health benefits, although with a greater exclusion of consumers compared to the case where a single policy is implemented.