The Effectiveness of "Sugar Free," "Fat Free," and "Trans-Fat Free" Labels on Food and College Students' Willigness to Purchase Them

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regularly conducts a survey to assess Americans' attitudes toward and knowledge of health and nutrition and has specific guidelines regulating food labels. The increasing importance of food label information to consumers makes it crucial for businesses to understand what their target markets value and what they should put on their labels. Several studies investigated the effectiveness of food labels, specifically sugar free, fat free, and trans-fat free, with mixed results. Relatively few focused on the Generation Y demographic. The purpose of this research is to determine which labels are most effective for businesses to market food products as fat free, trans-fat free, and sugar free to the Generation Y demographic in the effort to increase sales. This study used survey data, conjoint analysis, and simple descriptive statistics, and cross tabulations to find the best marketing strategy when Generation Y is the target market. The results show that trans-fat free labels are effective, fat free labels are most likely effective, and sugar free labels are detrimental to increasing sales.