NCT03761342: NUSMart NM

Evaluating the Relative Effectiveness of Two Front-of-pack Nutrition Labels

Completed NA Last updated 3 January 2019

What this trial tests

NA trial testing Multiple Traffic Light Label in Diet Habit in 154 participants. Completed in 3 December 2018.

Timeline

31 July 2018

Primary endpoint
3 December 2018

3 December 2018

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School
Phase	NA
Status	Completed
Study type	INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation	randomized
Design	crossover
Masking	single
Primary purpose	other
Enrollment	154
Start date	31 July 2018
Primary completion	3 December 2018
Estimated completion	3 December 2018
Sites	1 location across Singapore

Drugs / interventions tested

• Multiple Traffic Light Label
• Nutri-Score Label

Conditions studied

• Diet Habit — all drugs for Diet Habit →
• Diet Modification — all drugs for Diet Modification →
• Food Selection — all drugs for Food Selection →
• Food Preferences — all drugs for Food Preferences →

Sponsor

Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School

Who can join

21 and older, any sex, with Diet Habit or Diet Modification. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

In efforts to promote a healthy diet, the Singapore Health Promotion Board (HPB) has attempted to use Front-of-Pack (FOP) labelling to supplement traditional nutrition labelling. The Healthier Choice Symbol (HCS) identifies food items within a specific category of foods as healthier choices. The original logos were enhanced to include additional information focusing on particular macronutrients, taking one of two themes; it either indicates that a product contains more of a healthier ingredient, or less of a less healthy ingredient.

However, there is a lack of scientific evidence on the role of the existing symbols in assisting consumers make healthier food purchasing decisions. Thus far, studies have established that the United Kingdom's Multiple Traffic Lights (MTL) label, and the new French Nutri-Score (NS) label, are amongst the top performers. However, there is little consensus on which is the most effective FOP label to promote diet quality. Thus, the investigators propose to conduct the following:

Use a three arm randomized controlled trial (RCT) and an experimental fully functional web-based grocery store to test two competing approaches of front-of-pack (FOP) labelling on measures of diet quality: 1) United Kingdom's Multiple Traffic Lights label (MTL) or 2) France's Nutri-Score (NS) labelling scheme.

The investigators hypothesize that diet quality as measured by the Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI-2010) (primary outcome) will be highest in the NS arm, followed by MTL, and lowest in the no logo control arm.

Publications & conference data

2 peer-reviewed publications reference this trial (live from Europe PMC):

1. A Randomized Controlled Trial Evaluating the Relative Effectiveness of the Multiple Traffic Light and Nutri-Score Front of Package Nutrition Labels.
   Finkelstein EA, Ang FJL, Doble B, Wong WHM, et al · · 2019 · cited 45× · PMID 31533256 · DOI 10.3390/nu11092236
2. Calorie (energy) labelling for changing selection and consumption of food or alcohol.
   Clarke N, Pechey E, Shemilt I, Pilling M, et al · · 2025 · cited 15× · PMID 39820897 · DOI 10.1002/14651858.cd014845.pub2