Assessing levels of traditionality and naturalness depicted on labels of fermented meat products in the retail: Exploring relations with price, quality and branding strategy

Food labelling is a tool to inform consumers about the specifications and characteristics of a product. Additionally, labels display information about traditionality and naturalness, of which the meaning is highly subjective. There is a paucity of research examining attributes both of tradition and naturalness. In this study, traditionality was assessed by a model that included temporal, geographical, know-how, and cultural components. Naturalness was evaluated based on bio/organic elements, ‘free-from’ claims, and natural ingredients. Therefore, a content analysis tool was developed to analyze and score labels of fermented meat products, which generated insights in the key label characteristics of tradition and naturalness. The degree of tradition and naturalness was the average of their subdimensions which were scored based on the displayed elements. A higher degree of tradition and naturalness was linked to higher prices. Fermented meat labels were found to be strongly embedded in ‘authenticity’, and less in naturalness, an element more attractive for private labels than for branded products.