Healthy breakfast perceptions: comparing private labels and national brands

According to Ailawadi and Keller (2004, p. 332), a private label (PL) “identifies the goods and services of a retailer and differentiates them from those of competitors.” Historically introduced as low-cost alternatives to national brands, PLs have become a central strategic lever for retailers pursuing objectives of margin, differentiation and store loyalty (Mostafa and Elseidi, 2018; Karoui et al., 2024; Chen et al., 2023), evolving significantly alongside changes in food retailing formats and consumer behaviour (Czeczotko et al., 2022).

In their early stages, PLs were often generic, unbranded and strongly price-oriented (Anselmsson et al., 2014; Beacom and Bergin, 2024), which led to higher perceived risk and lower purchase intentions compared with national brands (NBs) (Mathur and Gangwani, 2021; Beneke et al., 2013). In recent years, however, investments in product innovation, line extensions and brand equity strategies have led retailers to the development of multi-tiered PL portfolios (cheap, standard, premium) and products that can compete with NBs also in terms of quality attributes (Keller et al., 2022; Akcura et al., 2019; Sethuraman and Gielens, 2014; Gielens et al., 2021; Angelino et al., 2021; Beacom et al., 2022).

This evolution takes place within a market increasingly driven by health considerations, where consumers show a growing willingness to pay for products perceived as healthier and nutritionally adequate (Ali and Ali, 2020; Alsubhi et al., 2023; Saba et al., 2019; Albornoz et al., 2024).

To capture this demand and strengthen their product lines, many retailers have moved beyond the “value for money” proposition and introduced nutritionally improved items, often developed in partnership with national brand manufacturers (Hoskins et al., 2024; Beacom et al., 2022). This approach provides what Beneke (2010, p. 211) defines as “superior value for money,” combining price convenience and quality.

Consequently, the traditional “quality gap” between PLs and NBs is giving way to what may be called a “brand gap”: a divergence in perceived qualitative superiority and value between retailer and manufacturer brands, even when products are objectively comparable in quality (Rossi et al., 2015; Nenycz-Thiel and Romaniuk, 2009; DelVecchio, 2001).

Although consumers claim to prioritize intrinsic attributes, such as taste and ingredients, when making food choices, they often base their judgments on extrinsic attributes such as the brand name, store image, perceived price and packaging (Rossi et al., 2015; Younis and Elmeniawy, 2025).

In this context, the “brand gap” may also apply to products associated with health and well-being, as perceptions of healthiness depend not only on nutritional reformulation but also on the combined interpretation of multiple cues: intrinsic (e.g. taste, aroma, texture, nutritional content) and extrinsic (e.g. visual, tactile, colour, packaging and branding elements), that consumers use to infer the credibility of health claims and the perceived risk associated with consumption (Motoki et al., 2025; Li et al., 2024; Marozzo and Donato, 2025).

Previous research has examined both the competitive evolution of PLs and the multidimensional nature of perceived healthiness (Plasek et al., 2020; Lusk, 2019). However, there is still a lack of coherent and comparative empirical evidence clarifying which cues are truly diagnostic of perceived healthiness when consumers compare PLs and NBs.

Specifically, it remains to be explored whether and to what extent substantive cues can bridge the brand gap in terms of perceived healthiness, and how personal factors such as health consciousness or perceived category risk affect the credibility and effectiveness of these signals.

In summary, this study aims to fill a gap in the literature on the relationship between brand type and perceived healthiness by providing empirical evidence on how different product cues shape consumers' health evaluations of PL and NB products.

Previous studies have highlighted the fundamental role of perceived quality in shaping purchase intentions toward PLs, sometimes even more than perceived value itself (Bao et al., 2011b; Richardson et al., 1994).

Perceived quality is defined as “the consumer's judgment about a product's overall excellence or superiority” (Zeithaml, 1988, p. 3) and represents a key criterion in product evaluation within retailing (Kakkos et al., 2015). Unlike objective quality, which refers to measurable product attributes (e.g. ingredients, composition), perceived quality is an abstract construct built upon consumers' experience, expectations and available information (Zeithaml, 1988).

Because consumers often lack the time or expertise to verify technical aspects, they rely on indirect cues to form their overall product judgments (Kara et al., 2009).

According to the Cue Utilization Theory (Olson and Jacoby, 1972), consumers assess product quality based on a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic cues. Intrinsic cues include information related to a product's composition and preparation (Bao et al., 2011a). However, in everyday purchase decisions, extrinsic cues tend to exert a stronger influence than intrinsic ones (Mostafa and Elseidi, 2018; Konuk, 2018), particularly when the brand is unfamiliar, making it more difficult for consumers to recognize intrinsic product properties (Mishra et al., 2020).

Extrinsic cues can be divided into tangible (e.g. packaging design, price, brand name) and intangible attributes (e.g. store image, product endorsement, perceived quality variation within a product category) (Bao et al., 2011b).

In food purchasing and consumption contexts, perceived quality is a multidimensional construct (Brunsø et al., 2002), and perceived healthiness, the extent to which a product is regarded as beneficial to health, represents a critical subdimension (Petrescu et al., 2020).

The objective quality gap between PL and NB products has progressively narrowed in many categories thanks to nutritional reformulations and PL upgrading strategies (Beacom et al., 2022; Angelino et al., 2021). In the specific case of breakfast foods, nutritional profiles of NBs and PLs have become increasingly similar, especially in terms of fibre, sugar and fat content (Angelino et al., 2021).

Nevertheless, national brands still benefit from stronger brand equity and communication investments that enhance trust and perceived quality (DelVecchio, 2001; Nenycz-Thiel and Romaniuk, 2009; Lacoeuilhe et al., 2020). PLs, by contrast, sometimes suffer from lower familiarity and higher perceived risk, linked to both price positioning and the retailer's overall reputation (Beneke et al., 2013; González-Benito and Martos-Partal, 2014; Alić et al., 2020). Based on these considerations, the following hypothesis can be proposed:

The relationship between brand type (PL vs NB) and perceived healthiness may, however, vary depending on individual consumer characteristics, particularly health consciousness, defined as the degree to which individuals are attentive to the health aspects of their diet and try to monitor the nutritional value of foods (Jayanti and Burns, 1998). Highly health-conscious consumers are more motivated to analyse product information, more skilled at decoding labels and claims and less inclined to base evaluations only on symbolic cues (Mai and Hoffmann, 2012, 2015). Thus, when health consciousness is high, the perceptual advantage of national brands over PLs could tend to weaken, as informed and involved consumers rely more on diagnostic cues (e.g. ingredients, nutritional values, absence of additives) rather than on signals associated with the brand (Plasek et al., 2020; Petrescu et al., 2020). Conversely, among less health-conscious consumers, the brand may act as a cognitive shortcut to infer product quality and safety (Mai and Hoffmann, 2012, 2015).

Finally, it is important to consider the role of perceived category risk. Several studies have shown that perceived risk toward private-label products is linked to the characteristics of the product category (Batra and Sinha, 2000; Chen et al., 2024). PLs tend to be preferred in low-risk contexts characterized by search attributes, features easily evaluated before purchase, rather than in categories dominated by experience or credence attributes, where consumers must infer quality after consumption or rely on indirect cues (Batra and Sinha, 2000; Glynn and Chen, 2009). As perceived risk increases, consumers rely more heavily on well-established extrinsic signals, such as brand familiarity and reputation (Batra and Sinha, 2000; Richardson et al., 1994). Since NBs enjoy stronger brand equity and higher perceived credibility, risk may amplify the perceived healthiness gap between NBs and PLs. In more complex or “risky” categories, consumers are more likely to depend on the brand as a cue of trust and safety, reinforcing the “brand gap” (DelVecchio, 2001).

Mai and Hoffmann (2015, p. 8) define perceived healthiness as “the consumer's expectation of a product's influence on his or her state of health.” Numerous studies show that consumers form this judgment by integrating a variety of cues, both intrinsic and extrinsic, which could be related to compositional aspects of the product or symbolic and communicative signals.

In particular, consumers tend to regard intrinsic cues (e.g. ingredients, nutrients, additives) as direct indicators of product quality and healthiness (Plasek et al., 2020; Petrescu et al., 2020).

In light of Cue Utilization Theory (Olson and Jacoby, 1972) and the Total Food Quality Model (Grunert, 2002), cues that reflect the product's substance are cognitively more diagnostic for evaluating quality and, consequently, perceived healthiness.

Even though intrinsic attributes are not always directly observable at the point of purchase, consumers can infer them from tangible signals (e.g. nutrition labels, ingredient lists) that represent them (Grunert and Wills, 2007; Kozup et al., 2003).

Conversely, extrinsic attributes function as cognitive shortcuts, linked to brand reputation or retailer image, and do not necessarily align with the product's actual quality.

Therefore, intrinsic-diagnostic attributes (those representing the substance and nutritional value of the product) are expected to exert a stronger influence on perceived healthiness than extrinsic ones.

According to the Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty and Cacioppo, 1986), individuals highly involved in a topic, like for example health, process stimuli through the central route, focusing on the most diagnostic informational content and reducing reliance on heuristics or cognitive shortcuts. Thus, consumers with high health consciousness should base their evaluations on the product's intrinsic and nutritional quality (e.g. ingredients, nutrient values, sugar or fat content) rather than on extrinsic signals such as brand or packaging design (Mai and Hoffmann, 2012, 2015; Plasek et al., 2020). Conversely, consumers with low health consciousness process information more superficially, so they could rely more on easily accessible extrinsic cues (Mai and Hoffmann, 2012, 2015). Therefore, the positive effect of intrinsic attributes on perceived healthiness is expected to be stronger among highly health-conscious consumers, as they are more likely to use substantial and diagnostic cues when assessing a product's health potential.

The first step of the study was the selection of the product categories, to delimit the scope of analysis. After a careful analysis, we selected breakfast products: cereals and biscuits. Then, a questionnaire has been developed and administered online to a total sample of 876 Italian grocery retail shoppers. For the data collection a Market Research Company has been involved to ensure the representatives of the sample in the Italian context and the generalisability of the results obtained. The questionnaire was divided into different sections. After the socio-demographic profile (Table 1), questions about healthy products were asked. After providing a brief definition of healthy products, a filter question related to whether respondents were buyers of health-oriented products guaranteed that the sample was familiar to the products and brands and had the knowledge and experience to answer the questions. Then, information about the reasons to buy healthy products, the category where they lastly bought a healthy product to assure the familiarity with the product (biscuits – 517 respondents and breakfast cereals – 359 respondents), the drivers that guide the selection of products in that category were asked. For each category, participants were invited to cite the brand names of a healthy product from a retailer (PL) and a manufacturer (NB), the ones they were more familiar with to guarantee enough closeness with the brands. Then, for both brands mentioned, participants were invited to evaluate on a 7-point Likert scale different product, brand and company attributes (Table 2). We operationalized the theoretical construct of “health consciousness” through health commitment to better assess consumers' involvement in their health. Indeed, in line with Gould (1990), health consciousness is defined as a multidimensional trait reflecting an individual's internal focus on their health. An active commitment to monitoring one's diet represents the behavioural manifestation of health involvement, which is one of the fundamental dimensions of health consciousness. Data were analysed using SPSS Statistics; ANOVA and linear regressions were run to test the hypotheses.

The first part of the analysis was dedicated to the understanding of the existence of a difference in health perceptions between PL and NB products in the two categories selected. Since participants were asked to evaluate both PL and NB products in one of the two categories presented, a repeated measures ANOVA was conducted. Age, gender, education and category familiarity served as covariates, since it has been found that they could affect consumers' responses (Steptoe et al., 1995; Wardle et al., 2000). The differences between health perceptions were measured for both the categories selected to identify possible different patterns that reflect the different products' characteristics in terms of health perception. Furthermore, the level of health commitment was measured to understand if and to what extent it can affect the health perception of products. Participants were then divided into two groups based on the median split method for the health commitment variable (median = 6.00). Before the analysis we conducted a repeated measure ANOVA to assess trust toward the PL and national brand for each participant and we did not find a significant difference (M_PL = 5.49, M_NB = 5.49, p = 0.942). This was done to ensure the same level of commitment of each participant towards the two brands.

The two categories selected (biscuits and cereals) were perceived having a different health risk (M_b = 3.101, M_c = 2.526, p < 0.001). In the same way, results revealed that private brands in the cereals category were found healthier than biscuits (M_b = 5.209, M_c = 5.536, p < 0.001), and the same happened for national brands (M_b = 5.178, M_c = 5.533, p < 0.001). Overall, cereals were perceived healthier than biscuits, confirming a different health nature in the mind of the customers and allowing the researchers to test differences between PL and NB products in different contexts.

Analysing the different health perception between PL and national brand products across the two categories, despite the differences among the products, we found no differences in breakfast cereals (M_PL = 5.536, M_NB = 5.553, p = 0.932) and in biscuits (M_PL = 5.209, M_NB = 5.178, p = 0.344).

Considering the level of health commitment, we found that overall consumers who stated to have higher level of health commitment, perceived brands to be healthier than consumers with low level of health commitment (M_HIGH = 5.531, M_LOW = 5.184, p < 0.001). Both groups with high and low level of health commitment perceived PL and national brands to be similar on the nutritional profile (M_LOWPL = 5.064, M_LOWNB = 5.056, p = 0.998; M_HIGHPL = 5.657, M_HIGHNB = 5.623, p = 0.160).

We did not find any interactive effect between health commitment and category: in both categories, no matter what the level of health commitment is, consumers perceived national brand and PL product to have the same health profile.

To test the impact of different cues (both external and internal) on the perceived health image of PL and NB products we ran a regression using SPSS including taste, nutritional information available, value for money, naming, out-of-store health advertising and quality of the ingredients. Before running the regression, in order to manage multicollinearity given by the similarity of the concepts analysed (Barbaranelli and D’Olimpio, 2007), a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with Varimax rotation was conducted for both NB (KMO = 0.746; Bartlett <0.001) and PL (KMO = 0.727; Bartlett <0.001). In both cases, two components were extracted: the first one comprises the extrinsic cues (health advertising and naming) while the second one includes the intrinsic ones (taste and nutritional information). The results of the extraction for the PL and NB products are reported in Table 3.

Then the coefficients were used to run a regression and measure the impact of intrinsic and extrinsic cues on the perceived health image of PL and NB products. Results of the regressions show that for both PL and NB products, the impact of intrinsic cues on perceived health image is greater than the impact of extrinsic ones (NB: B_EXT = 0.402, p < 0.001, B_INT = 0.661, p < 0.001, R-square = 0.599, Adjusted R-square = 0.598; PL: B_EXT = 0.358, p < 0.001, B_INT = 0.702, p < 0.001, R-square = 0.621, Adjusted R-square = 0.620).

A regression model including brand × attribute interaction terms was estimated to test whether the effects of extrinsic and intrinsic attributes on perceived healthiness differed across brand types. The t-tests on the interaction coefficients were not significant (p > 0.05). In other words, both national brands and PLs follow a very similar structural pattern in how internal and external cues predict perceived healthiness.

Two separate moderation analyses were conducted to test whether attention to diet moderated the relationship between product attribute factors (Factor 1 – extrinsic cues; Factor 2 – intrinsic cues) and perceived healthiness for the PL and national brand products.

Results show that neither of the interaction terms - Factor1PL × Attention to diet (B = −0.010, p = 0.687) nor Factor2PL × Attention to diet (B = −0.024, p = 0.360) - reached statistical significance. This indicates that the strength of the relationships between product attributes and perceived healthiness does not vary as a function of health commitment in the PL condition. Attention to diet was also a positive predictor (B = 0.101, p < 0.001). Yet, the interaction terms - Factor1NB × Attention to diet (B = 0.000, p = 0.991) and Factor2NB × Attention to diet (B = −0.026, p = 0.337) - were non-significant, indicating that health commitment did not moderate the influence of either attribute dimension on perceived healthiness for the NB product.

Overall, the results suggest that individuals who are more attentive to their diet perceive products as generally healthier. However, the role of health commitment is additive rather than interactive - it enhances perceived healthiness directly but does not alter the impact of product attributes on this perception. The results of the study are summarized in the table below (Table 4).

The present study explored consumer health perceptions of retailers' PL and national brand (NB) products in the grocery retail context, across two food categories (biscuits and breakfast cereals), and examined the influence of intrinsic and extrinsic product cues on health-related brand perceptions. Utilizing repeated measures ANOVA and linear regression, the findings provide a nuanced understanding of the variables affecting perceived healthiness and consumer attitudes. The results indicate that product category significantly influences health perceptions. Cereals were consistently rated as healthier than biscuits, a finding that aligns with prevailing consumer associations of cereals with nutrition and dietary fibre, as opposed to the more indulgent connotations of biscuits. Importantly, this categorization effect persisted regardless of the type of brand (PL or NB): all brands in the cereal category were perceived healthier than the brands in the biscuit one, in contrast with H1c. Contrary to conventional assumptions about brand superiority (Rossi et al., 2015; Nenycz-Thiel and Romaniuk, 2009; DelVecchio, 2001), no significant differences were identified between PL and NB products in terms of perceived healthiness across the two categories disconfirming H1a. This suggests that PL offerings in grocery retailing are now viewed as viable alternatives to NB products in the context of health, potentially reflecting improvements in PL quality, formulation or consumer trust in retailer brands. In fact, for both brands, customers feel the same level of trust, confirming that both retailers and manufacturers can offer valuable health products.

In addition, we found that health commitment did not affect the health-related brand gap perceptions, not confirming H1b. We previously hypothesized that a greater health commitment could lead individuals to be more motivated to analyse product information, more skilled at decoding labels and claims and less inclined to base their evaluations on symbolic cues such as the brand (Mai and Hoffmann, 2015), reducing the differences between PL and NB products. As a matter of fact, researcher found that PL products have a nutritional composition similar to or better than NB equivalents (Beacom et al., 2022; Bodur et al., 2016) and thus, higher commitment leads to a more objective evaluation of the nutritional profile and a reduces the effect of perceptions of the product and brand judgement. From a marketing perspective, this finding creates opportunity for retailers to promote health towards PL products as well as price for competitive advantage and to increase overall brand equity.

Then, after dividing intrinsic and extrinsic cues using PCA, linear regressions were run to find the factors contributing to the perceived health image of PL and NB products. Results show that when dealing with health, customers rely more on intrinsic cues (taste, ingredients) to evaluate the healthiness of a product, no matter which is the brand they are asked to judge. These results confirm H2a. We hypothesized that intrinsic-diagnostic attributes (those that represent the substance and nutritional value of the product) can exert a stronger influence on perceived healthiness than extrinsic attributes of a symbolic nature. In fact, consumers tend to rely on intrinsic cues (e.g. ingredients, nutrients, additives) as direct indicators of a product's quality and healthiness (Plasek et al., 2020; Petrescu et al., 2020).

However, data did not confirm H2b. Results revealed that health commitment is a significant positive predictor of brand health perception: individuals who are more attentive to their diet perceive products as generally healthier compared to those who state having a poorer diet. However, the interaction terms between health commitment and each attribute factor were non-significant, indicating that health commitment did not moderate the effects of product attributes on perceived healthiness for either brand type. Intrinsic cues are equally important: no matter which is the level of health commitment, people rely on taste and food content to assess the healthiness of their choices. The literature states that high involvement in a given topic leads individuals to concentrate more on the content and less on symbolic features (Plasek et al., 2020). When dealing with health, content is relevant no matter which is the level of commitment. In line with these results, retailers and manufacturers need to put more attention into the development of clear, detailed and transparent information since are fundamental in the development of brand health image. At the same time, arranging product tasting events, by stimulating the senses, can positively affect the image of the brand. Coherently, the Global Health and Wellness survey (NIELSENIQ, 2025), posits that 44% of participants involved claimed for trial or sample products before the choice and the 45% wanted detailed information and performance claims.

One last consideration has to be done about dietary habits and the variable used in the present study. The level of involvement has been measured with the health commitment of the participants involved, considered as an indicator of how much people care about what they eat. However, this measure can be misleading given that there is a difference between what people state and what people actually do. Moreover, future studies may consider different measures such as health consciousness or health literacy, health knowledge or a combination of them in order to detect possible interaction effects and different results. Previous studies pointed out that also health consciousness can lead to misinformation on nutrition since people with high levels of health consciousness are more vulnerable. Misinformation is in turn associated to poor health behaviours and outcomes (Peng and Shen, 2025). Self-stated health motivation does not necessarily give to individuals the ability to identify misinformation, evaluate the sources of information and distinguish the valuable ones from the unreliable ones. When measuring the health consciousness and knowledge, is important to consider both subjective and objective knowledge. In fact, a comparison between subjective knowledge (refers to individuals' perceptions of their own knowledge) and objective knowledge (refers to absolute knowledge measured against objective standards) can be measured to identify overconfidence (average objective knowledge exceeds average subjective knowledge) knowledge calibrated (average objective knowledge and average subjective knowledge correspond to each other) or knowledge overconfident (average objective knowledge exceeds average subjective knowledge) (Hansen and Thomsen, 2022). Analysing these phenomena can be helpful to understand the consumers' way of collecting and processing data and predict the role of different cues in the evaluation of health brand image.

Despite the valuable insights provided, this study presents several limitations. Firstly, the research relies entirely on self-reported measures to assess perceptions of healthiness, trust and consumer attitudes. Such measures are inherently subjective and may be influenced by individual interpretation or social desirability bias, potentially limiting the accuracy of the findings. The scope of the study was confined to three product categories which, although representative of common consumer goods, may not adequately reflect the full spectrum of food products available in the market. As such, the generalisability of the findings to other product categories, particularly those with different health connotations or usage contexts, remains limited outside the breakfast products. Another methodological constraint lies in the use of a median split to categorize continuous variables such as trust and health commitment. While this approach simplifies analysis, it can reduce statistical power and overlook the subtleties present within a continuous distribution, leading to potential misclassification of respondents. Moreover, while the study explored consumer attitudes and their willingness to repurchase the brand, it did not measure actual purchase behaviour. The absence of behavioural data limits the ability to draw firm conclusions about how perceived healthiness translates into concrete consumer actions. Furthermore, although the analysis included some advertising-related variables, it did not consider the actual content, tone or reach of promotional materials. Lastly, the findings are context-specific and may reflect particular cultural, economic or retail market conditions. The perception and acceptance of PL versus NB products can vary significantly across countries and retail environments, suggesting that caution is warranted when attempting to generalize these results beyond the studied context.

This study contributes to the growing body of literature on consumer perceptions of food healthiness by revealing the increasing parity between PL and NB products in health-related evaluations. While product category remains a dominant influence on perceived health risk, the absence of significant differences between PL and NB products suggests a maturation of the PL market and increasing consumer confidence in retailer brands in different categories.

Level of health commitment was found to influence the overall perceived healthiness of the brands sold in a specific category, but not the differences between brands inside the product categories. However, level of commitment did not moderate the role of different cues on perceived health brand image. Further studies are required to enrich the topic and provide more insight.

Future analysis can investigate also the relationship between store image and store brand image as a relevant aspect in shaping brand perceptions, especially the PL ones. Finally, the present study analysed only health perceptions, deliberately ignoring the relationship between health perceptions and actual purchase behaviour, especially regarding price sensitivity and willingness to pay for health enhancing features.