A Survey on the Status and Consumers' Knowledge of Nutritional Labeling of Food in a Supermarket in Hangzhou

Objective To investigate the status of nutritional labeling of common food and consumers' knowledge of nutritional labeling in Hangzhou.Method The status of nutritional labeling of 262 kinds of food packages from 7 categories in a large supermarket was investigated,and 280 consumers were randomly selected interviewed with a questionnaire.The data were analyzed in EXCEL.Results The overall labeling rate of food nutrition was 57.6%,and a lot of food only marked one kind of nutrition,of which percentage was 26.0%.There was a comparatively great difference on nutritional labeling rate among different kinds of food,and names and units of nutriments labeled were not uniform.15.0% consumers regarded food nutritional information as the most important factor while purchasing food,and 88.9% consumers argued that the government should take measures to uniform nutritional information printed on food packages.Conclusions The current food labeling in the supermarket is not normative,and the government should take steps in the legislation of food nutritional labeling.The knowledge of consumers to food nutritional labeling is poor,and the government and media should enhance relative propaganda and education to consumers.