How a health goal activation drives the Nutri-Score effect

•The presence (vs. absence) of the Nutri-Score activates participants’ health goals.•The Nutri-Score improves the healthiness of shopping baskets (“Nutri-Score effect”).•An activation of health goals underlies the “Nutri-Score effect”. The Nutri-Score nutrition label has been found to improve consumers’ food choices in several previous studies. It is not clear though why this would be the case. Using a multi-methods approach consisting of four experimental studies (covering in total 1150 respondents and 145 products), we provide evidence that the Nutri-Score serves as a health prime and activates health goals in and of itself. This health goal, in turn, leads consumers to make healthier food choices. As part of an experimental-causal-chain design, Study 1 (n = 304) shows that the presence (vs. absence) of the Nutri-Score on product packages leads consumers to activate a health goal. Study 2 (n = 351) then shows that a manipulation of health goals increases the healthiness of respondents’ shopping baskets. Studies 3 (n = 225) and 4 (n = 259) replicate this substantive finding using traditional measurement-of-mediation designs (Studies 3 and 4), while at the same time excluding injunctive social norms as a rival explanation for the Nutri-Score effect (Study 4). Identifying why the Nutri-Score enhances healthy food choices is important as it increases our understanding of how nutrition labels can be further improved. Implications for public policy makers, retailers, and manufacturers are discussed.