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1. Introduction
Imagine you are shopping at a local retail store for your weekly groceries. While browsing the food product section, you notice the following labels on meat products: “no-preservatives,” “no trans-fat,” and “free-range.” You decide to buy the chicken with the “free-range” label and believe that a humanely raised meat product is beneficial to your family's health. As you move to other aisles, you find labels such as “100% lactose-free,” “fat-free” and “dairy-pure” on dairy products, and “locally-sourced,” “all-natural” and “non-GMO” on the packaged vegetables. In addition to the “free-range” chicken, you put “lactose-free” milk and “locally-sourced” vegetables into your cart.
The current COVID-19 outbreak and the long-standing obesity pandemic, among other influences, have driven a change in consumer eating behaviors. Eating healthily, food safety, and immune support have become the primary goals of some consumers' food buying behaviors (InsightsNow, 2020). The reluctance of out-of-home food consumption spurred a home-dining trend during lockdowns during the pandemic (Martin-Neuninger and Ruby, 2020). Clean label food, as a disruptive and emerging food philosophy, is one of the solutions to meet consumers' needs (InsightsNow, 2020). Clean label food products are broadly defined as foods devoid of any artificial additives, less processed, and with simpler and shorter ingredient lists that are chemically recognizable and originally traceable to consumers (Asioli et al., 2017; Hutt and Sloan, 2015). The concept of clean labeling appears to overlap with a plethora of other specific concepts such as “transparency, natural ingredients and simplicity” (Wang and Adhikari, 2017). The meaning of “clean label” is also being broadened to include reduced fat, sugar and sodium content when it contributes to health (Hutt and Sloan, 2015).
Given the increased demand for the clean labeled items, as well as the heightened public awareness due to disclosed virus contagion cases during the manufacturing process, food handling procedures are required to be carried out in the simplest and safest manner (Nunes, 2020). A study conducted by InsightsNow (2020) shows an increase in consumers who prefer to purchase food that is naturally sourced and free-from artificial ingredients. Specifically, the percentage of consumers in the United States who express interest in clean label food has trended higher, from 28 to 32%, and Canada has seen an increase from 27 to 34%....