Misleading food packaging

Carien de Jager received a grant from the Gratama Foundation in September 2020 for the research project `Misleading or seduction: Do current laws and regulations offer consumers sufficient protection against misleading food packaging?' The Gratama Foundation annually subsidizes several scientific projects set up and carried out by scientists at the University of Groningen.

This was an interdisciplinary study at the intersection of law and psychology. The study examined whether current legislation, regulations and case law offer consumers sufficient protection against misleading food packaging. To do so, it first identified how European and national laws and regulations prohibit misleading food packaging and how these regulations are applied in European and Dutch case law and by the Advertising Code Committee. To verify whether legislation and case law correspond to what is truly misleading to consumers, an experiment was then designed based on a study of the behavioral science literature. 379 people participated in this project. The study was completed in early 2023.

Duration of the project

2020 - 2023

Awarded grant

20,820 euros, obtained from the Gratama Foundation

Contact person at our Faculty

Mr. dr. C.E. (Carien) de Jager

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