Researchers discover when see-through packaging makes consumers eat more or less
You don't have to consume a lot of business news to see transparency as an issue in the food industry. Whether the topic is pink slime in McDonald's burgers, Whole Foods promising to label products with genetically modified ingredients, or IKEA recalling horsemeat-tainted meatballs, the bottom line is that people want to know what they're eating, and they want to be able to see it.
The paper, by Professors Xiaoyan Deng of Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business and Raji Srinivasan of McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas in Austin, appears in the July 2013 issue of the American Marketing Association's Journal of Marketing. The study placed experimental subjects in a common snacking environment: in front of the television (where 70% of all snacks are consumed). Researchers told the subjects that they would be evaluating advertisements that ran during episodes of the popular sitcom "The Office." Participants were provided with snack foods including nuts, cookies, M&Ms, Cheerios and Froot Loops to munch on while they watched TV. Some foods were offered in transparent bags, while others in opaque bags.