By M. Krishnamoorthy

KUALA LUMPUR - At least half of Malaysian shoppers care about the amount of fat, sugar, preservatives and colouring when buying packaged food, a Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey revealed.

"Our survey findings show the degree to which health and diet have taken a pivotal role in our lifestyles," said Linda Lim, director of The Nielsen Company Malaysia.

"The need for clear and educational labelling has become one of the most debated topics in recent few years and the pressure is on for the food industry to take greater responsibility for educating people about what they're eating," said Lim.

Among the 500 adults in Malaysia who took part in the survey, more than half checked packaged food labels for fat (56%), sugar (52%), and preservatives (51%). A total of 28,253 people were surveyed worldwide.

While preservatives (53%) and colouring (53%) were the most frequently checked three years ago, they have now dropped in importance, to third and fourth placing.

On the other hand, the greatest jump - of 10 percentage points - is interest in the level of protein in packaged food.

The survey was conducted among Internet users in 51 markets from Europe, Asia Pacific, North America and the Middle East in April this year.

However, globally, it's the fat content that nearly half of all consumers check. A total of 47% said they checked food labels for fat, followed by calories (44%) and preservatives (42%).

Interestingly, Malaysians scored higher than the average consumer in the Asia Pacific region when seeking information on food labels.

Twenty-seven percent of consumers here have cultivated the habit of regularly checking nutritional labelling on packaged food, compared to just 25% in Asia Pacific.

Consumers in Malaysia also tend to pay more attention to food labels in specific situations, the top two most common instances being when they were buying a product for the first time (40%) or when buying certain food types (36%).

"In the past five years there has been unprecedented coverage of health, diet and lifestyle issues in the media. Never before have consumers been so obsessed with healthy living, and marketers have realised that adding an element of 'healthiness' to any product is fundamental to sales success," said Lim.