Supermarkets employ sophisticated psychological techniques to maximize sales, including store layout, product placement, and packaging design. While some techniques are obvious, others are more subtle like cartoon characters making eye contact with target consumers. Manufacturers have long described processed foods as "natural" despite additives, and regulations have developed to restrict misleading claims. Currently, "clean label" foods featuring short, natural-sounding ingredient lists are popular, but these terms are not well-defined, and health claims made by bloggers lack scientific evidence. Consumers demand such foods without understanding their meaning or effects.

1. Whenever anyone of us sets foot inside a supermarket we are subjected
to some of the most compelling psychological techniques known to
marketing. Over many years the supermarkets, along with the food
manufacturerswhoseproductsfilltheirshelves,havedevelopedandfine
tuned store layout, product placement and package design to the
minutest detail in order to entice the consumer and maximise sales1
.
Some of the techniques employed are fairly obvious and, by now,
well known to the customer. For instance we will all recognise the
general layout of the aisles as they are more or less the same in every
store you enter. You are immediately met with beautifully coloured fruit,
next to the pre-packed sandwiches and fizzy drinks – perfectly placed for
peoplewhopopintograblunch.Forstaplefoodslikebreadandpopular
products like alcohol you will have to walk to the far end of the store and
pass all the special offers and cooking smells like rotisserie chickens –
they hope you will feel hungry and buy something you did not intend to.
Other techniques employed are not so obvious but nonetheless
scientifically deadly. For instance, Cornell Food and Brand Lab
Researchers Aner Tal and Brian Wansink recognised that eye contact
increases brand trust, so are you aware that the eyes on the faces of the
cartoon characters on children’s cereal boxes look down at an angle of
9.76 degrees so they look directly at small children, while the faces on
cereal boxes designed for adults look straight ahead2
. The height
they are placed on the shelves means they make eye contact with their
target consumer.
This is clever stuff, and of course it is perfectly legal, after all the
consumer is not being misled, just willingly guided! However, other
techniques have, and are being employed where it could be argued that
regulations are being stretched and the consumer deceived. Do you
remember a juice drink called ‘Sunny Delight’? It was a marketing
success story of the 1990s and early 2000s3
. Children loved it and mums
did not mind as it was a healthy orange juice drink – it must have been,
afterallitwasplacedinthechilleddisplayunitwiththeotherfreshjuices.
Not so, it was an entirely processed product full of colourings, flavouring,
added sugar and thickener. Questions were asked of the director of the
Asda brand, Penny Coates at the House of Commons Select Committee
on Health about its positioning with other fruit juices to give an
impression of it being healthy, which she conceded did not help4
.
Soonafterthis,combinedwithastoryofayounggirlturningorangeafter
drinking too much, sales slumped.
The current trend in supposedly healthy food is the ‘clean label’
Food fads are nothing new and the latest one is the rise of the minimally processed, free from additives, clean
labelfood.Consumersarelookingmoreandmoreatingredientsliststodecideifthatproductissomethingtheywant
to eat. The problem is, are the claims misleading and does the consumer know what they mean anyway?
Lies,damnlies
andcleanlabels
C L E A N L A B E L
www.newfoodmagazine.com 67 New Food, Volume 19, Issue 1, 2016
■ David Taylor
Senior Scientist, NoWFOOD Research Development Centre,
University of Chester
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ValentinaRazumova/Shutterstock.com
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2. denoting a ‘natural’ product which has had minimal or no processing
although there is no accepted definition. Of course, claims made on
labels are subject to regulation and false or misleading claims may lead
to legal action against manufacturers. Once again, this is nothing new, in
fact there have been prosecutions on just this point. As far back as
1983 Britvic Ltd were charged that they falsely described their product,
a combination of orange juice, concentrated orange juice and water as
‘natural’ contravening regulation 6(f) of the then Food Labelling
Regulations19845
.OnappealintheHighCourt,Counselfortheappellant
referred to the much older case of Davenport v Apollinaris Co Ltd (1903)
regarding the description of mineral water with added carbonic acid as
‘natural mineral water’. Both of these cases demonstrate that
manufacturers have for many years known of
the benefit of describing their products as
‘natural’ even where it is contentious.
In the European case of D’arbo it was
the opinion of Advocate General Léger in the
European Court of Justice that strawberry jam
manufactured by an Austrian company could not label its product as
‘naturally pure’ considering that it contained pectin gelling agent and
traces of lead, cadmium and pesticides (albeit at safe levels)6
. Mr Léger
decided that this reference was liable to mislead the consumer as to the
characteristics of the foodstuff within the meaning of Article 2(1)(a)(i) of
Directive 79/112. He also cited the judgment in Gut Springenheide and
Tusky (1998) in deciding if a statement is likely to mislead, the national
courtsmusttakeintoaccount“thepresumedexpectationsofanaverage
consumer who is reasonably well informed and reasonably observant
and circumspect”.
Since these cases were decided, much of the law (although not all)
concerning labels and claims made about food has been revised. The
relevant legislation on the matter is now found in several sources. Article
16 of Regulation (EC) 178/2002 laying down the general principles
and requirements of food law, requires labelling, advertising and
presentation of food should not mislead consumers. Article 7 of
Regulation (EU) 1169/2011 on the provision of food information to
consumers, prohibits Food Business Operators (FBO) from labelling,
advertising or presenting their food in such a way as to mislead
the consumer as to the characteristics of the food, to attribute to the
food effects or properties that it does not possess or suggest the food
possesses special characteristics which are in fact possessed by all
similar foods. The Food Safety Act 1990 makes it an offence to describe,
present or advertise food in a way that is false or likely to mislead the
consumer, and also prohibits the sale of any food not of the nature,
substance or quality demanded by the consumer.
The word ‘Natural’ is now defined in the Regulation (EC) No
1334/2008 on flavourings and certain food ingredients with flavouring
properties for use in and on foods, where at
Article 16 (4) it states that a food may only be
termed ‘natural’ when the food, food category
or a vegetable or animal flavouring source if the
flavouring component has been obtained
exclusively or by at least 95% by weight/
weight from the source material referred to. That seems straight
forward, but manufacturers are now moving away from this term and
preferring to use other words such as, ‘Fresh’, ‘Pure’ ‘Authentic’, ‘Simple’,
and the list goes on7
. And the fact there is a definition of ‘Natural’ may
explain why manufacturers are moving away from that particular term in
favour of the others!
Obviously it is difficult to know if the consumer is being misled and
therefore liable under the above legislation where no definitions exist for
the claim. If a manufacturer wishes to make claims such as these they
can refer to the Criteria for the use of such terms in food labelling
produced by the Food Standards Agency (FSA). However this document
offers ‘General best practice advice’ only and is not legally enforceable.
It is intended to assist FBOs to decide when these descriptions may (or
may not) be used; to help enforcement officers to provide consistent
advice; and to benefit consumers by encouraging the adoption of
consistent, transparent labelling practices. This applies to pictorial
designs on packets as well as words, as these
have been shown to be capable of misleading
the consumer in just the same way.
Another huge area of growth in the
construct of food labels is the ‘free from’
revolution. An important part of that clean label
design, as well as stating that a product is
‘simple’and‘minimallyprocessed’istoensureit
contains no additives or allergens in what is
often a short ingredients list8
.
Additives are regulated in the EU by
Regulation (EC) 1333/2008 and they are defined
as substances used in foods for different reasons
such as to sweeten them, provide colour or
prolong shelf life. Their use is subject to the
regulationtoensureahighlevelofhumanhealth
and consumer protection. When displayed in an
ingredients list they must be referred to by their
category name or their relevant E-number.
Displaying an E-number in an ingredient list is
the food equivalent of committing commercial
New Food, Volume 19, Issue 1, 2016 68 www.newfoodmagazine.com
C L E A N L A B E L
Consumers are more and more looking at ingredients lists
©Kzenon/Shutterstock.com
Allergens are certain substances
present in foods that produce
an abnormal immune response
in some people
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3. suicide as there is now an almost unshakeable belief
that they are unhealthy, but it isn’t so9
. Also, according
to the food journalist Joanna Blythman many
additives have been scrubbed up for the clean label
market. One such product is an anti-oxidant called
butylhydroxyanisole or E300-21 which extends the life
of the food. A chemically derived equivalent is now
availablecalledextractofrosemary,butitisessentially
the same chemical. Even the food industry accepts
thatnaturaladditivesarenotmuchdifferentfromtheir
artificial counterparts, they are made using the same
chemical techniques10
.
Allergens are certain substances present in foods
that produce an abnormal immune response in some
people. There are 14 allergens recognised by the
European Food Standards Authority (EFSA) and these
substances provoke no response in the vast majority
of people, however consumers looking for a clean
label food are moving away from them, and there a
good deal of ‘healthy eating’ experts out there telling
them to do so – “Go Gluten Free” is the message on
more sites than I can possibly reference here.
The rise of the internet blogger has led to the creation of ‘healthy
eating gurus’ some of which have many hundreds of thousands of
followers and presumably they are making a great deal of money, many
of them are making all sorts of unsupported medical claims about food.
Gluten is a food to be avoided by sufferers of Celiac disease. However,
a common claim made by ‘clean food’ bloggers is that the consumption
of gluten causes ‘Leaky Gut Syndrome’, and consumers should eat their
products to avoid the disease. This disease is not recognised by
conventional medicine and there is little evidence connecting the vague
symptoms to gluten consumption11
.
Therearepotentiallegalconsequencestomakingclaimssuchasthis
and their use is restricted by Regulation (EC) 1924/2006 on nutrition and
health claims made on food. The loophole is the fact that they do not
claim their product cures any disease (which would be illegal), they claim
theconventionalfoodcausesanunknowndiseaseandthattheirfoodwill
allowyoutoavoidthatdiseasebyreplacingthatfoodinyourdiet.Itisalso
worth considering that to suggest a conventional food, such as a bread
containing gluten causes a disease, would mean it was unfit for human
consumption under Article 14 (2) of Regulation 178/2002, but this seems
to be skirted around. As they do not make a claim of their own food, they
donotneedtosupplyanyscientificbasisfortheirposition–itisliterallyup
tousasindividualstodecideifwethinkthereisanythinginwhattheysay.
Finally, a word needs to be said about the use of enzymes in food
production. Once again an (EU) regulation governs their use, this time it
is No 1332/2008. Enzymes are used to catalyse specific biochemical
reactions and are added to food for a technological purpose.
Because they are biological molecules they are easily broken down or
denatured in the production process and therefore they are
undetectable in the finished product. Consequently they do not have to
appear in the ingredients list, as they are no longer present. This seems
acceptable,howeverwhatwouldyourpositionbeifyouwereJewishand
the enzymes came from a pig? Or wider still, if you were a vegan and the
enzymes came from any animal?
Any improvements to how our food is produced should be
embraced. We often take our abundant supplies of food for granted and
evenseekoutwaystoclaimthosesuppliesarenotgoodforusandinvent
unsupported claims to sustain food industry fads. The food industry is
consumer driven, but the consumer only seems to want what they are
told they want. It may be that ‘healthy eating gurus’ should have to
substantiate their claims scientifically, and manufacturers explain their
processes fully. Until then, consumers will continue to demand ‘clean
label’ food without having the first idea what that really means or if it is
goodforthemornot,andthelawisn’treallygeareduptostopit.Itseems
that caveat emptor still applies.
C L E A N L A B E L
www.newfoodmagazine.com 69 New Food, Volume 19, Issue 1, 2016
1. http://theplate.nationalgeographic.com/2015/06/15/surviving-the-sneaky-psychology-of-
supermarkets/
2. http://foodpsychology.cornell.edu/op/cerealeyes
3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3257820.stm
4. Select Committee on Health, Examination of Witnesses, 4 December 2003 HC Q990
5. Amos v Britvic Ltd (23 July unreported)
6. C-465/98 Darbo [2000] ECR I-2297
7. http://www.foodnavigator.com/Market-Trends/What-do-natural-and-clean-label-
mean-anyway
8. http://www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/Ingredients/Clean-label-growth
9. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/food/2010/08/are-e-numbers-really-bad-for-y.shtml
10. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/feb/21/a-feast-of-engineering-whats-really-
in-your-food
11. http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/leaky-gut-syndrome/Pages/Introduction.aspx
References
David Taylor is a food microbiologist and the Senior Scientist at
the NoWFOOD Research Centre at the University of Chester.
Prior to this he spent 20 years working for various Local
Authority Environmental Health departments as both a food
examiner and an Environmental Health Inspector enforcing
food safety and food standards law. He is a chartered biologist
and recently completed the Post Graduate Diploma in Legal
Practice at the College of Law. He is currently reading for a PhD in food law.
About the Author
‘Clean label’ denotes a ‘natural’ product which has minimal or no processing
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