Helping Mother Earth: young children's responses to sustainability labels on food packaging

Children are an essential group in the path toward sustainable diets. This study (N = 240) therefore experimentally investigates children's (8 to 12 years) brand attitude and purchase request intent after exposure to a verbal sustainability label combined with a visual cue on food packaging. Results indicate that children's environmental concern is an important moderator of the efficacy of such sustainability labels. For children low in environmental concern, it is beneficial to add a visual cue to a verbal label, as it positively affects packaging evaluation, and consequently, brand attitude and purchase request intention. This visual cue diminishes the efficacy of a verbal label, however, when children are high in environmental concern. Findings can assist food manufacturers, marketers and policy makers to more effectively stimulate children to adopt sustainable diets.