*3.2. Nutrition Claims*

The questionnaire contained 39 nutrition claims in total, covering all options listed by the Regulation (EC) No. 1924/2006. In some cases, claims were presented through an example, such as "source of calcium," while others used a generalized form, for instance, "source of vitamins." EU and national level food law allow the use of the terms salt and sodium as synonyms in labelling, so both terms were included in the questionnaire. Besides the claims listed in the regulation, some other elements were also included (for example, prebiotic, contains antioxidants, etc.). Respondents expressed their opinion on 1–5 Likert scale about their preference of the listed nutrition claims shown in Figure 1. For better interpretation, PCA was used to reduce 39 items to 8 well-distinguishable nutrition claim categories (Table 5). As expected on the basis of previous relevant studies, the created categories highlighted that consumers did not perceive significant differences between multiple level claims [40,56]. Accordingly, the categories give a robust representation for multiple level claim groups (for instance, with no added sugar, low in sugar, sugar-free, within the factor named sugar).


**Figure 1.** Preference of nutrition claims on food (1–5 Likert scale, where 5 means the highest level of preference).



In general, nutrition claims related to vitamins and minerals received the highest preference scores. Protein, fiber and sugar content also seem to be important for the respondents. Claims related to fat content, energy, and salt can typically be found in the middle section of the list. PCA analysis clearly indicated a group constituted by those claims that are not listed in the Regulation (EC) No. 1924/2006 (Table 5). Lactose-free and gluten-free are at the bottom of the list. In terms of salt and sodium, the former one is more preferred by the consumers, although both terms indicate the same nutritional element (Figure 1).

Figure 2 shows the differences between age groups in regard to the nutrition claims categories composed with PCA.

**Figure 2.** Preference of nutrition claims categories composed with PCA, between different age groups (\* *p* < 0.05; \*\* *p* < 0.01).

Differences between preferences of age groups are significant in all cases, except nutrition claims related to protein and fiber. Respondents over 60 years typically have stronger preference of the listed claims than the younger age groups. The most significant difference was found in the case of saltrelated claims.
