Do you buy your groceries online? Be aware of this gap in food labeling

Picture this: you’re shopping for this week’s groceries online. They try to choose healthy options based on the information provided by the online retailer. You can tell that the products you choose are organic, not organically grown.GMOsor Fair Trade certified. However, in many cases you will not find any nutritional information, a list of ingredients or even a list of allergens.

A new, comprehensive study of online grocers shows that this problem is pervasive and detrimental to public health and safety in the United States. Those from researchers at Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and published in Public Health Nutrition on October 17thshows a lack of current, accessible and readable information about the foods consumers buy, while marketing claims are still at the forefront. The lack of accessible food labeling has tangible public health consequences, said Julia Sharib, lead author of the study and research and communications manager of the Food is Medicine Institute at the Friedman School.

“The government clearly intends for you to know certain things about your food,” he said Sean CashBergstrom Foundation Professor of Global Nutrition at the Friedman School and senior author of the study. “The way we have regulated this in the United States is to put this information on the packaging. But that hasn’t translated very well to online spaces.”

A lack of information

Cash and researchers at the Friedman School and New York University (NYU) identified for the first time the lack of accessible food labeling among online retailers in a Pilot study 2022 of 10 foods from nine online grocers. This study found that food information required by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), such as nutritional information, an ingredient list, and an allergen list, was often missing and less present than marketing claims.

The lack of information accessible in the online environment highlights a “major gap” in federal regulations, Cash said. While food manufacturers are required by the FDA to provide certain information on food packaging, online grocers are not required to display this information on their websites. This means that consumers don’t necessarily have access to calorie, nutritional content or allergen information when shopping for groceries online.

Since 2022, there have been some reasons to believe that retailers would step up their game. First, online grocery shopping is here to stay – recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) shows that 20% of Americans buy their groceries online, while over 80% have done so in the last three years. This trend has been fueled by a decline in online grocery prices compared to shopping in stores: prices for groceries in stores and online are now roughly comparable, which was not always the case.

Second, online grocers could have responded to the growing market and chosen to pre-empt any regulatory action. “We thought there might be practical changes in how grocery retail operates,” Cash said.

There are signs that the FDA is also considering regulatory action. In 2023, the agency issued a Ask for information on food labeling for online grocery shopping, using previous research from Cash and his colleagues as the basis for their inquiry. “We and others have pushed for change,” Cash said. However, the authority has not yet taken any regulatory action to close the gap.

The new study with co-authors Jennifer Pomeranz, associate professor of public health policy and management at the NYU School of Global Public Healthand Dariush Mozaffarian, director of the Food is Medicine Institute and Jean Mayer, professor of nutrition at the Friedman School, provides a more comprehensive look at the topic, analyzing 60 food products from 10 different online grocers. The food products were selected to represent the typical assortment of foods commonly sold in supermarkets based on a formula used by the USDA to administer food assistance programs. The results show that the trend continues: Only 35.1% of products had every FDA-required label present, accessible, and readable.

However, marketing claims and labels were present for 83.7% of products. This is what Cash finds unpalatable. “It’s much easier to find marketing that’s trying to sell you the food than the information that our society believes should be there to tell you about the food you eat,” he said.

“We have seen many cases where, for example, a nutrition facts label was only accessible after scrolling through a dozen marketing images, essentially forcing any consumer searching for that label to interact with the marketing language,” Sharib said .

Make shopping more accessible

Studies show that public health is better when ingredient lists and nutritional information are provided. If consumers can’t access this information, “retailers risk perpetuating consumers’ misconceptions about the healthiness of the food they purchase,” Sharib said.

Additionally, many Americans follow special diets designed to control certain health conditions and may seek foods with specific nutrient content. “For example, if you’re concerned about sodium intake because you have high blood pressure, food labeling can be a very important part of your life,” Cash said. Missing food labeling can also be dangerous for people with certain allergies.

The best way for consumers to get the information required by the FDA is to visit the food manufacturers’ websites themselves, Cash said. These websites are much more likely to have nutritional information and ingredient lists present and readable. Cash points out that food labels included in product reviews can be helpful, but can also be outdated or inaccurate.

And ultimately the responsibility should lie with regulators and the industry to provide important information to consumers, Cash said. “We shouldn’t burden consumers,” he said.

There are a few solutions: First, regulators or Congress could pass new laws or impose new regulations to force food retailers to make food labeling accessible. Second, the U.S. government could help online retailers make food labeling accessible by providing a public database of packaged foods’ nutritional, ingredient and allergen information, Cash said.

“Without modern regulation, we simply cannot continue to grow this sector,” Sharib said.