Abstract
Demand for foods with health-related claims can change depending on the label admitted for the product. In order to consider the desirability of the current labeling system for the functional foods in Japan, we conducted an internet survey and the conjoint-analysis to see how the consumers' willingness to pay for labels on the “Food for Specified Health Use (Tokuho in Japanese)”. We found the following results.
Consumers showed high willingness to pay for a product, if it had the “productbased label” which shows that the product was found to have an effect to reduce the cholesterol. The willingness to pay for the “ingredient-based label”, which shows that the product contains ingredients with effects to reduce the cholesterol, was reduced but positive for health-conscious people. When the label contains a name of sickness on which the product has some positive effects, those who have suffered from the sickness showed higher willingness to pay. This effect existed even for those who have knowledge on the relationship between the cholesterol and the sickness.
The current Japanese labeling system has a strong restriction on putting names of sickness in the label for the functional foods. Our results suggest that, when there is scientific evidence, relaxing the restriction can improve health of the people.
