الفهرس 
INTRODUCTION AND AIM OF THE WORKOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Food labels play an important role in food marketing through their impact on product design, advertising, consumer confidence in the quality, consumer education on food and health, and consumer purchasing decision.
Food labels are one of the most important direct means of communicating information to the consumer. It conveys information on the identity of the product, its contents and its ingredients, its nutritional composition and on how to handle, and prepare it safely. Moreover, labeling foods is an integral part of consumer decision-making during purchasing. It helps consumers to make comparisons of products to help consumers make healthy food choices and to tell if a product is worth the price or not.
Good customer knowledge about food label narrow searches and save time during shopping. Consumer preferences and choices depend on understanding food label information.
The purpose of this study therefore was to study consumer’s knowledge and practices regarding food labeling on packaged foods and to identify determinants related to consumers’ preference and choices during purchasing based on food label information in Alexandria city.
To fulfill this objective, A total of 306 adult consumers of both sexes aged ≥18 years in Alexandria city. Consumers were selected randomly during their purchase of food. Any person who agreed to participate in the study was included until the required number was reached.
Data was collected through face-to-face interviews using a pre-structured questionnaire including 5 sections: 1) The socio-demographic characteristics of the participants (gender, age, education, marital status, and occupation, Sources in learning about food labels.).2) Consumer perception on food labeling. (Extent of information on food labelling by the respondents/ Benefits of food labelling information.3) The participants’ knowledge regarding information contained in food labels. (a) Label content (b) Nutritional Information 4) The participants’ practice / use of information on food labels: (A)How often do consumers read labels, (B) To what extent decision of purchasing food product depends on food label information.5) factors affect consumers’ understanding of food labels. (A) How easy or difficult it is to understand food labels. Difficulties in reading food label were ranked as easy, somewhat difficult, and difficult (B) Barriers factors: Why is information difficult to understand (C) Motivating factors: The respondents’ preference during purchasing. What is the most important information you use when choosing food in retail premises. choose the top 5 items.
The results of the present study revealed that:
1. Demographic characteristics of respondents
• More than half of respondents participated in this study (57.2%), were females, while males constituted 42.8% of all respondents.
• 32% were in the age group 26 to 35 years while 20.3% were in the age group 36 to 45 years.
• Most of the respondents (85.3%) had college/university education.
• 27.5 % of the respondents were employs and
• 76.1% were free of diseases, while 19.9% had chronic disease.
2. Consumers’ perception on the importance of food labelling information
2.1. Consumers’ Extent of information on food labelling
• 35.9% of respondents perceived food label information as very important, while 39.5% of respondents perceived food label information as somewhat important and only 6.5%. of respondents perceived food labelling as not important.
• For the overall awareness with food labelling information, only 17.0% of the respondents claimed to be very much informed about food labelling information, while 34.3% of the respondents were minimally informed, and only 15.4% were not informed.
2.2. Consumers’ Benefits of food labelling information.
• 65.4% of respondents think that everyone should read the food label, while 34.6% said only people with allergies, diseases and those on a diet should read the label.
• Regarding the awareness of each label item, high level of awareness was recorded for product name by 70.6% of the respondents, 58.5% for expiry date, followed by brand name (57.8%), net content or Packaging size, (38.9%), and nutrition information (31.4 %).
2.3. The respondents’ knowledge of the information contained in food labels.
• Regarding consumer general knowledge about food labeling contents, 98% of the respondents answered correctly to the question ”Why is it necessary to label allergens?”, 74.5% answered correctly about the importance of expiration dates and 29.7% answered ”What ingredients are on food labels?”
• Regarding the knowledge about food label content, the majority (57.5%) of respondents had fair level of awareness on food label content and only 22.5% of the respondent had good level of awareness. Meanwhile 19.9% had poor level of knowledge about food label content.
• Regarding general knowledge about nutritional Information, 99.0% of the respondents showed good knowledge (correct answer) to each the information that a food label has, the meaning and disadvantage of calories. A low level of knowledge (correct answer) was recorded for serving size (51.0%), and the meaning of reduced fat (16.0%).
• Regarding knowledge about nutritional information, more than half of the respondents (57.8%) had good levels of awareness. A poor level of awareness was recorded by only 2.9%.
• The most important thing to look at first in relation to Nutrition label were calories (43.8%) follow with Fat content (39.2%). of respondents
• The overall score percentage of general knowledge of consumers about food labeling was 76.13 ± 13.48. However, 51.6% of the respondents had good level of awareness, 47.1% had fair level of awareness, and only 1.3% of respondents had poor level of knowledge about food labeling.
• A significant effect of all demographic variables on the levels of general knowledge about food labeling was observed.
3. Respondents practices towards using food labelling information
• Regarding how often consumers read food labels information 54.66 ± 17.78. However, most respondents (29.7%) had poor level of using food labels, 60.8% had fair level of using food label and none of the respondents (9.5%) showed good levels of using food labels.
• The overall score percentage of using food labels was 53.87 ± 18.13 while 10.8% of the respondents had good level of using food labels, 54.6% of respondents had fair level and 34.6% had poor level of using food labels.
• Regarding relation between demographic variables and the respondents’ use of information on food labels, a significant effect of gender only was observed on the respondents’ use of information on food labels where 45.0% of males had fair level of using information compared to 61.7% of females.
3.1. Respondents’ practices towards using food labelling information in decision of purchasing food product.
• The prevalence is relatively high, where 77.5% of respondents reported reading label information before purchasing prepackaged food. Regarding how often they read labels, 77.5% of respondents sometimes read labels, and only 9.2% of respondents go to never read labels. However, this level of food label reading did not reflect the use of label information when purchasing prepackaged food, where only 26.5% of respondents usually used information when buying food.
3.2. Respondents’ preference when choosing food during purchasing based on food label information.
• Regarding using food label information in decision of purchasing food product, 37.6% of respondents had low level of using food labels information in their decision of purchasing food, while only 26.5% of respondents were usually use food labels information during purchasing.
• Regarding the relation of social demographic characteristics to the levels of respondent’s decision during purchasing based on food label information, a significant effect of gender, age, and marital status variables on the respondent’s decision during purchasing based on food label information.
• More than half (52.3%) of respondents were looking always for the name of the food before purchase. The price of the food was preferred by (18.6%). Meanwhile, only few respondents (4.9%) were interesting in the list of ingredients as a choice.
4. Respondents practices towards reading food labelling information
4.1. The prevalence of reading food labels before purchasing prepackaged food
• Regarding understanding food labels information, most of respondents understand the number of portions/servings included 21.2% followed by Nutritional information by 15.0%.
4.2. The reasons for not reading and understanding information on food labels by the consumers.
• The most recorded reasons were, the text is too small by 66.7% of respondents followed by the language used is difficult to understand (19.9%), and too numerical data (5.9%).
4.3. The kind of information on food labels that the respondent is reading during purchasing.
• More than three quart of consumers (78.8%) were always caring about the name of the food, followed by Expiry date (47.4%), manufacture date (27.5%), and nutritional information (14.7%). Meanwhile, consumers were less interested in the name of the manufacturer (6.2%), halal claims (9.8%), health claims and organic food claim (9.5% each). Most interesting, Price of the food constitute an important element in the label information that attract 61.4% of consumers to always read food label.
6.2. Conclusions:
It could be concluded from the study that:
• Only 17.0% of the respondents claimed to be very much informed about food labelling information, and 15.4% were not informed.
• The majority (57.5%) of respondents had fair level of awareness on food label content, meanwhile 19.9% had poor level of knowledge about food label content. The overall score percentage of general knowledge of consumers about food labeling was 72.24 ± 15.25. However, 52.0% of the respondent had good level of awareness, and only 6.9% of respondents had poor level of knowledge about food labeling.
• The prevalence of reading food labels before purchasing prepackaged food is relatively high, (77.5%). The most recorded difficulties/barriers towards reading food labelling were, the text is too small by 66.7% of respondents followed by the language used is difficult to understand (19.9%), and too much numerical data (5.9%).
• More than three quart of consumers (78.8%) were always caring about name of the food, followed by Price of the food (61.4%) and Expiry date (47.4%). Meanwhile, consumers were less interested with name of the manufacturer (6.2%), health claims and organic food claim (9.5% each). 37.6% of respondents had low level of using food labels information in their decision of purchasing food.
• Regarding respondents’ preference when choosing food during purchasing based on food label information, more than half (52.3%) of respondents were looking always for the name of the food before purchase. The price of the food was preferred by (18.6%). Meanwhile, only few respondents (4.9%) were interesting in the list of ingredients as a choice.
• Education level, gender, occupation, marital status and age of respondents were found to be significantly associated with awareness and consumer practices and behaviors regarding and using food labeling.
6.3. Recommendation:
According to the findings of the present study, we could recommend the following:
1- Governments should set food labeling guidelines to support the sale of only safe and healthy food and to make sure that food is truthful and not misleading.
2- Governments should develop and distribute consumer guidelines to help people read and understand information on food labels.
3- Healthy camping by government to improve consumers’ ability to read and understand information on a food label to ensure consumers can make informed/ healthy food choices.
4- Nutrition education programs in schools are needed to increase the awareness of young people about food labeling and make sure they make healthy food choices.