Legal labeling of Sandwiches and Similar Products

Requirement

Question: Write a Research proposal: Legal labeling of sandwiches and similar products

Solution

Introduction

The consumers in the market are no more illiterate and whenever they shop now, they do it with full awareness. Earlier, the marketers used to tell them various stories and showed them visuals about the product that often mislead them. But, now, they know that what the marketers are doing and they are able to save themselves from the false words and promises.  Thus, when the products have appropriate description on them regarding all details, then consumers can be assured that the product is quality product and they can use it without any fear (Block, 2013). The direct indexical evidence that the consumers have is the immediate sight of the product.  This problem is mainly common in the food products as they have a direct effect on the health of consumers therefore consumers take utmost care when buying food items like sandwiches. These products are packed and sold very carefully so that direct sensory evidence is provided to the people and all the quality claims gets validated.  The product is comparable with other products so that consumers can make a choice between the products that are available in the market. In the current research paper, the legal labeling of sandwiches and similar products will be studied and it will be analyzed why legal labeling is essential and why providing adequate information to the consumers about a product is required by marketers (Freeman, 2015). 

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Rationale of study

This study will help in determining that how the food labels or the legal labeling of sandwiches help the consumers in getting information about the nutrients that are present in the food items like sandwiches. There are some ingredients that are present in the food items to which any particular consumer may be allergic. So, the consumers get to know about the food allergens present in the items or the sandwiches. They are warned against eating it so that they save themselves from any harmful consequences of eating the product (Fernandes, 2016). Also, out of the products sold in market, many products are those that are packed many days ago and they are not fresh. With the legal labeling, the date of manufacturing and expiry has to be mentioned by the producers so the consumers can protect themselves from buying stale food items. 

Importance of research question

The research question is that ‘’why the legal labeling of sandwiches and similar products is required?” This research question is important because food products like sandwiches are ready-to-eat products. If they are not consumed within a particular time from the time of their manufacturing, they are likely to cause health problems to the people because they lose the nutrients, they become stale and the ingredients used in it also gets damaged. So, when the reasons for the legal labeling of sandwiches and similar products will be known, then only it will be followed by the marketers and the consumers will also become more aware (Koenigstorfer, 2014).

Literature review

Ababio wrote a research paper on the topic “the relevance of food label information to the consumers”.  In this study, he surveyed the consumers in Ghana. He wanted to know that whether the food label information helped the consumers in some way or not, or whether the information was just useless and waste of time and effort by the manufacturers. In his research, he found that almost 90% of the people considered the food label information and that information influenced their buying behavior in the market. Also, out of those 90%, there were almost 85% of the people who also followed the instructions on eating, consuming or storing the products (Freeman, 2015). The reason why they did this was that they felt when they followed the instructions and read the labels; they were able to eat healthy and right.  They had less health problems and they could consume fresh products with all the nutrients of their food kept intact. So, it was concluded that when the consumers are given proper information about the product, they becomes well-informed and they are able to take care of their health (Ababio, 2010). So, this study was used in the present research also as it helped to establish the aims of this research paper. 
In another study, Amoah researched about the factors that make the consumers select a sandwich.  The factors that were used by the researcher in his study are:  advertisement, quality, discounts, packaging and taste. The choice of factor by the consumer determines that whether he reads the labels on food products or not. For example, if the consumer is highly influenced by the advertisement of the food item, then he may not read the label. Also, if he likes the taste of the food product very much then it is less likely that he reads the label  (Amoah,  2011) So impact of the factors on food labeling was analyzed in this research.  This paper helped in finding out the factors that influence the buying decision of a consumer apart from label.  

Aims

The research question is that ‘’why the legal labeling of sandwiches and similar products is required?” So, based on the research question, the following aims of the research paper have been developed:

  • 1.    To find out whether consumers prefer the products with a manufacturing and expiry date or without it.

  • 2.    To determine the buying behavior of consumers when the sandwiches and other similar products are legally labeled.

  • 3.    To analyze the benefits that consumers get from legal labeling of sandwiches and similar products.

  • 4.    To ascertain the effects of legal labeling of sandwiches and similar products on the health of consumers. 

  • 5.    To see how these legal labeling influence the perceptions of the consumers about the sandwich and similar products. 

Research design and method    

Research Design

The study tries to figure out the whether the consumers consult these labels before buying their sandwich. Then the study tries to find the factors that encourage people to select a sandwich. It may be the taste of sandwich, advertisement, brand, availability, quality, packaging, and discounts, etc. (Hobin, 2016).  The research also aims to whether the food label along with the ingredients of sandwich would be useful for the consumers or not. The further research aims try to examine whether it is understandable for the consumers regarding the ingredients that are incorporated during the production of the sandwich. Then the sandwich eating habit of the consumer can also be determined by finding out their buying patterns of their favorite sandwich (Elbel, 2013). If they purchase it very frequently, that means, they have it as a part of their routine, if they purchase it from parties and celebrations, so that means that eating their favorite sandwich and related product items is a way for celebrating, and there may be several other patterns that will be discovered in this study (Long, 2014).  Finally, the study will determine the sandwich is taking the pattern of customers keeping in mind the influence of food labeling in their decision. In this, the regularity of consumption will be acknowledged like whether they eat their preferred sandwich once in a day, twice in a day, once in a week and so on. So this study deals with the consumption of sandwich as per the food labeling and the importance of food labeling and its influence on the consumers (Freeman, 2015). 
In the present study, our main aim is to find out the reasons that make the labeling of sandwiches and similar products important. So, the research design here is descriptive (VanEpps, 2016). This is because, the customers are being evaluated here and their preferences are determined to find out that why the legal labeling is required. The involvement of consumers is a must in this study; therefor it is descriptive in nature. For doing this, quantitative data will be collected and analyzed which is another feature of descriptive study. The environment in which the consumers purchase the products is kept as it is and nothing is manipulated in the environment (Block, 2013). Without changing the environment, the information from the consumers will be collected. The behavior and attitudes of the consumers matters a lot in the present study which are the descriptive characteristics. So, the entire research design is descriptive. The interaction with the consumers will happen in this study in the form of interviews or surveys and necessary information will be collected from the consumers to know that why the legal labeling is essential for them as well as the marketers. Particularly this research design is chosen because the research question requires the study to answer ‘why’ which is beset answered when descriptive study is used in the research. Also, when the information is to be collected from the people (Hobin, 2016),  then descriptive study makes the collection and analysis of the information very easy and transparent. 

Participants/Sample

The people who will participate in this includes the shoppers at all the retail outlets and the fast food shops that sell sandwiches and similar products. A sample of 200 is estimated to participate in this research. The retailers and the fast food sellers will be persuaded to distribute the questionnaires to the people and consumers who come to their shops for buying things.  Those who will be willing to participate in the research will be given the questionnaires (Fernandes, 2016). The questionnaire will have a pledge at the top that the responses of the consumers will be used for academic purpose only and their identity will not be disclosed without their permission.  So, if the consumers will be willing to respond to the questions, then only they will be asked to fill the forms, otherwise they will not be forced to do that as approval of the participants is very important in this research.  Usually, there is a particular method of sample selection like simple random sampling, cluster sampling etc. but, in the present research, the sample will be selected on the basis of willingness of people to participate and the researcher will not use any particular method for sample selection (Thorndike, 2012). Only one consideration that will be made here is, that the respondents who are in their teens or youth, they will be preferred over children. These are the trend setters in today’s world and they are the ones who consume ready to eat products like sandwiches the most.  So, their responses will be most valuable in this study. 

Ethics

This research will be conducted in an ethical manner. It would serve its purpose in the right manner with utmost honesty. The communications that will happen with the parties outside like the retailers and fast food shop owners that will be honest. Also, the reports, results etc. will be communicated to the stakeholders in an honest manner.  No information that is useful to the stakeholders will be hidden from them or the information that can affect the buying decisions of a consumer will be disclosed to them.   All the objectives will be targeted and fully fulfilled in this study. The research will give an insight to the people who will get them associated with it. The data will also be collected in an honest way, and Cronbach's Alpha will be used for determining the reliability of the data (Block, 2013). This will further help in testing the internal consistency of the data. The literature that has been reviewed in this context is related to the current study and is relevant to it.  This can easily be tested by glancing at the references in the bibliography as well as the in-text citations. The confidentiality and privacy of the respondents will be maintained. The moral and the social values of the people will not be harmed with the results or the procedure of this study, instead, they will be given a chance to analyze their buying patterns and they will be able to take care of their health in a proper way (Elbel, 2013). 

Data collection

In this study, both primary, as well as secondary source will be used. In the primary source, a questionnaire will be designed for conducting the primary research. Secondary sources will also be used which will include journals, research papers and books that will be used to review the literature. Both the methods are quite suitable for this study (Hobin, 2016). The questionnaire will be used for fulfilling the objectives of the study as it will help to give a perspective of the influence of the food labeling in the food choices (specifically the sandwiches and related products) for the consumers (Newsome, 2014). The literature that is reviewed will be used as a foundation for this study. Questionnaires are one of the best tools for collection of primary data because large number of people can be included in the study with the help of questionnaires and the time which is wasted in one-to-one interactions is saved. Here, the questionnaires will have closed-ended questions, that is, the questions will have few options and the consumers will have to select the answer from those options only (Fernandes, 2016).  This will make the analysis of the data collection easy and reliable.  The open ended questions where the consumers are free to write their views are difficult to analyze and interpret as each consumer has a different point of view and it becomes difficult to generalize their varied thoughts. 

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Data analysis

Data will be analyzed using two softwares namely- SPSS and MS Excel.  In SPSS, the data reliability will be tested, so that the impacts could easily be determined.  In Excel, the bar graphs, pie charts, etc. will be prepared that will help in displaying the results in an appropriate manner.  Also, various calculations that include the numbers and frequency will be performed in this software. SPSS is recommended software for performing advanced analysis, but the reliability of the data can be tested here only (Elbel, 2013). Graphs can also be prepared in the SPSS, but Excel helped to give a better presentation to our work. MS Excel software was also be used for making bar graphs and related stuff and for applying functions like ‘sum’; ‘if’; ‘count if’ on the data. Data will be calculated and accordingly percentages etc.  will be found out to know how much consumers say/prefer what thing. Then correlation will be found to see the impact of one variable on other like the impact of labeling on the buying behavior of consumers or the impact of consumer education of the need of labeling etc. These concepts help in concluding the research and develop the findings of the research (Kerr, 2015). Thus the consumer can see the data and findings to know the results of the study. 

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