Researcher Discusses Sustainability Labels and the Search for “No Impact” Food

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Yoon-Na Cho, marketing researcher

In his book No Impact Man, Colin Beavan describes his efforts to feed his family with food that is produced with a minimum impact on the environment. The consumer demand for sustainable food has grown so much in recent years that some of the country’s largest retailers, including Walmart, are considering whether to require “sustainability labels” on food packaging. These would be similar to the nutritional labels used now, but  would offer consumers a way of understanding the environmental impact of a particular food product.

Yoon-Na Cho, a doctoral student in marketing at the Sam M. Walton College of Business, is one of the first researchers in the nation to study how this labeling might affect consumers, and the amount of information that these labels should have to be most effective.

She will discuss her research and what she has learned so far during a lecture on “Communicating Product Sustainability to Consumers” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 20 in the J.B Hunt Building, room 144. The event is free and open to the public. Her talk is part of the No Impact Man semester events sponsored by the One Book, One Community project.