Comprendere l’impatto dell’etichettatura nutrizionale fronte pacco sulle scelte e le preferenze dei consumatori. Il caso del Nutri-Score applicato alle Indicazioni Geografiche

Food and health are strictly intertwined concepts, with obesity and overweight emerging as some of the most pressing nutritional challenges worldwide. Indeed, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) statistics, in 2022, approximately 59% of adults and nearly one in three children were overweight or obese in the European context, causing over 1.2 million deaths. The prevalence of obesity in Europe is higher than in all the other regions, except for the Americas, forcing governments and institutions to adopt different strategies to mitigate and contain the problem. The European Commission has indeed outlined an integrated approach to reduce health issues caused by overweight and obesity, contrasting the obesogenic environment and reducing high-risk behaviors, such as improper dietary habits and lack of physical activity. In this context, Front-of-Pack (FOP) nutritional labels play a fundamental role, as they are intended to help consumers make healthier food choices easily and quickly. Through the Farm to Fork Strategy, the European Commission had initially set the goal of adopting a single mandatory FOP nutritional label, consistent across all Member States, by 2022. Among the various nutritional labels currently adopted in the European context, the Nutri-Score (NS) seemed to be the most scientifically supported due to its ease of understanding. However, due to strong opposition to this labeling system, raised by major food industries and some politicians, especially at the Italian level, the European Commission was unable to choose which Front-of-Pack label to adopt at the Union level, with a consequent delay in the decision to the next European legislature. In fact, NS seems to "not ensure correct and complete information for consumers," as reported by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), while also potentially harming typical and traditional products, such as Geographical Indications (GIs). Despite the importance of delving into this issue, the scientific literature has not investigated the reasons behind this decision, making it even more challenging for the European Commission to make a cohesive and robust decision. This thesis aims to clarify this issue by outlining the state of the art regarding the NS debate at the European level, highlighting the differences between public opinion and scientific literature, and bringing to light the areas not investigated enough by scientific research (Chapter 3), after introducing the NS topic (Chapter 1), also considering its normative framework (Chapter 2). The contrast between NS and GIs has emerged as the main topic of discussion at the public and political levels, although it has not been adequately investigated by scientific literature. To bridge this gap, this thesis seeks to clarify the issue by analyzing consumer preferences for various GIs labeled with NS (Chapters 4 and 5), while also examining the real implications of this nutritional label on the prices and sales of GIs products (Chapter 6).