SuScan: Integration of Consumer-Preferred Sustainability Food Labels into VKJ mobile app

The project addresses the priority challenge of informing consumers about the benefits of circular economy and increasing consumer demand for sustainable food products. This will be achieved by performing an overview of existing sustainability food labelling schemes, along with a survey of consumer preferences and needs. The survey will be performed in two countries, Slovenia, and Denmark, to enable wider insight on the topic. The insights will be used for an upgrade of a widely used free mobile app VKJ (currently 30k users), developed by consortium members from Slovenia, which enables consumers to scan the barcode (EAN) of a selected branded food product and receive feedback information on the product's nutritional composition. It also interprets the nutritional information based on the nutrient profile by using the food traffic light labelling system, supporting healthier food choices. A similar app is currently under development in Denmark. Based on the insights from the mapping and consumer survey, the app will be upgraded to also provide sustainability information on food products, which is currently not available as an app feature. By educating and informing consumers on sustainability of food products, the main outcome of the proposal will be to encourage consumers to make more environmentally friendly and sustainable food choices and therefore contribute to sustainable net zero food system. The results of mapping and consumer survey will further provide important information which will be included in the briefs for policymakers and food manufacturers. The briefs will provide an insight into which topics and content in terms of sustainable food choices and labelling must be addressed further and which additional information is needed to make labelling of sustainable food products more feasible and widely used. Also, it will reveal the consumers’ needs and preferences on this topic, which can significantly contribute to shaping the future of sustainability food labelling. Throughout the project, there will be campaigns in different media on the promotion of the VKJ app as well as healthy and sustainable food choices. The activities and stats on the use of the upgraded app will be summarised in the Consumer impact report at the end of the project. The benefits of the proposal results will therefore be multiple. On one side, there will be direct benefits for consumers, achieved by the upgraded mobile app VKJ, which will then provide sustainability information alongside the nutritional profile of a certain food product. This will help consumers in making healthier as well as more sustainable food choices with less effort. The results of the proposed project will be useful for future development of similar apps providing nutrition information. Further, food industry and policymakers will benefit from the briefs which will provide key information on bringing sustainability food labelling closer to consumers.

Project co-funding

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Participating organisations

Inštitut za nutricionistiko (project leader)

University of Aarhus, MAPP centre

Inštitut Jožef Štefan

Zveza potrošnikov Slovenije

Project duration

1.4.2024 - 30.9.2025

The main goal of the project is to contribute to more sustainable food system by assisting consumers in making more sustainable food choices easily. As the use of mobile applications in assisting food choices is gaining popularity, the activities planned in this project offer the unique opportunity to include sustainability features and in such way educate consumers on both, healthy and environmentally friendly food options. Encouraging sustainability labelling and bringing it closer to consumer, to which the briefs for policymakers and food manufacturers will contribute, together with clear communication of such labelling on food products will significantly contribute to increasing consumer awareness on environmental impact of specific food products and guide them towards more sustainable food choices. This will have an overall impact towards achieving a net zero food system by increasing consumer demand for sustainable food products.

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Nutrition institute is engaged in research and education in the field of nutrition and advising the food industry in the formulation and labeling of foods. In the scope of the institute, research group Healthy Nutrition is established, which performs research on food and nutrition.