An advertisement describing a food product as having few ingredients attracted more clicks than one describing the same ingredients as many in a marketing study published in the Journal of Marketing Research.
The study compared the language used to describe identical ingredient lists, alongside experiments on product choice. Researchers found that people often viewed products framed as having few ingredients as more natural, but their preferences could reverse when they wanted an indulgent or distinctive food.
The work, first published online in March and included in the journal’s October 2026 issue, examined consumer perceptions and responses. It did not establish that a short ingredient list makes a food healthier, safer or less processed.
Two ads, the same ingredients
In one field comparison, advertisements for a brownie showed the same ingredient list. One described the number of ingredients as few and the other described them as many, according to the research by Michelle Yoosun Kim and colleagues.
The few-ingredients version received 1,395 unique link clicks from 40,096 people reached, a rate of 3.48%. The many-ingredients version received 1,257 clicks from 41,003 people reached, or 3.07%. The difference was 0.41 percentage points.
Those were clicks, not purchases. The authors caution that Facebook’s ad delivery optimization did not ensure random assignment between the field-ad conditions, so differences in delivery could have influenced the comparison.
A separate controlled experiment offered participants a real choice between snack bars. The same bar was selected by 58.22% of people when its ingredients were framed as few, compared with 47.87% when they were framed as many. The findings describe that experiment, not a guaranteed increase in sales.
What shoppers infer from a label
The researchers ran two preregistered pilot studies, seven preregistered experiments and additional tests. Their analysis found that people often inferred a product had undergone less processing when its ingredients were described as few, which increased its perceived naturalness.
That inference can be wrong. The number of ingredients alone does not reveal how a food was made or its nutritional composition. A product with a longer list may include several ordinary ingredients, while a short list can include ingredients that have undergone substantial processing.
Consumer goals also mattered. In tests where participants were asked to seek something unique or indulgent, the preference for a few-ingredients description weakened or reversed. In another test, highlighting a desire for vitamin variety removed the observed advantage.
Our earlier reporting on added-sugar disclosures and food purchases examined a different question: how a required nutrition-label change related to sales of yogurt and cookies.
Implications for food marketing
The study’s authors do not recommend removing ingredients solely to make a label shorter. A recipe change can alter taste, shelf life and production costs, none of which was established by the framing experiments.
Food businesses can test accurate descriptions against a clear commercial objective, then compare completed purchases and repeat buying as well as ad clicks. Claims about processing, nutritional benefits or ingredients need evidence beyond the number on a label.
For customers, the results illustrate how a word such as few can influence a judgment even when the underlying list is unchanged. Reading the full label provides more information than an ingredient count alone.
