Reporting nutritional information on wine packaging: Does it affect consumers’ choices? Evidence from a choice experiment in Italy

At the end of 2023, EU Commission mandated the adoption of nutritional labelling on wine products. This was intended to tackle irresponsible drinking behaviour and excessive energy intake from alcohol, but the alcohol industry stakeholders have remained skeptical. In this study, we seek clarification on: (1) whether nutritional labelling on alcoholic beverages can nudge consumers toward lower alcohol and hence lower calorie choices, (2) whether it can affect consumers' evaluations for quality attributes, and (3) whether it beneficially affects choices by those who are most vulnerable. We conduct an online Choice Experiment on Italian consumers with a between-subjects approach, to simulate pre- and post-policy scenarios and observe choices by consumers who are informed about nutritional features (i.e. calorie content) and contrast these to those by uninformed consumers (i. e. the control group). We focus on red wine since, in Italy, wine is part of the traditional food diet and, at the same time, quality attributes represent a major component of product distinctiveness. Results from a Latent Class Random Parameter Logit Model (LC-RPL) weakly support nutritional labelling being an effective nudge toward low-alcohol wines, specifically in the case of less vulnerable consumers who are health-conscious, with lower BMI, who enjoy red wine during social gatherings and don't typically read wine labels. Nutritional labelling on wine bottles either did not affect or enhanced mWTP for quality attributes. Consumers generally valued calorie content on wine packaging. This supports the implementation of nutritional labelling policies.