European Consumers' Nutrition Knowledge

How much do European consumers know about nutrition? What impact does this level of knowledge have on their use of nutrition information on food products? What is well understood and which areas need further explanation from a public health perspective?

Awareness, Understanding and Use of nutrition information on food labels in the European consumer

Do European consumers do what they say they do when it comes to reading and understanding nutrition information on packs? How informative are the different European labelling systems? What effect might labelling have on product choice?
 

Biographies

Josephine Wills B.Vet.Med., PhD., MRCVS
Director General, European Food Information Council, Brussels, Belgium.

Having qualified from the Royal Veterinary College in London in 1981, Jo spent several years in veterinary practice and earned her PhD from the University of Bristol Veterinary School, in 1986.

After several years postdoctoral research at the University of Manchester Medical School, she joined the company Mars, where she worked in science, communication, and regulatory roles for 18 years, latterly as European Head of Scientific and Regulatory Affairs for all product categories.

In January 2006, Jo was appointed to Director General of the European Food Information Council, based in Brussels.
Jo has published over 80 scientific papers, edited four books and lectured extensively worldwide.

Professor Klaus G. Grunert
Professor of Marketing at the Aarhus School of Business, University of Aarhus, and founder and director of MAPP - Center for Research on Customer Relations in the Food Sector.

Klaus has done extensive research in the areas of consumer quality perception and food choice, public acceptance of biotechnology and especially genetic modification, on how insight into consumer behaviour feeds into product development processes in food producing companies, and on competence development in the food industry.

As director of MAPP, he has carried out more than 50 collaboration projects with the food industry, including several pan-European studies. He is the author of 12 books, 82 academic papers in international refereed journals and numerous other publications.

Klaus G. Grunert is a past president of the European Marketing Academy, holds a part-time position as Professor of Fisheries Marketing at the University of Tromsų in Norway and is professor of the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management.