The Role of Summary Information in Facilitating Consumers’ Comprehension of Nutrition Information

Percent daily values provide important information that consumers can use to manage the nutritional quality of their diets. The authors report on four experiments that examined conditions in which summary information (such as average or range) may prove more useful than daily values in assessing nutritional content and conditions in which it may not. Two experiments provided evidence that summary information outperforms percent daily values in helping consumers judge the nutritional content of a brand compared with other offerings in that category. Two more experiments identified a key variable—the availability of multiple brands for comparison—that moderates the facilitating effect of summary information.