study: gold star nutrition ratings appear to work

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Hannaford grocery stores feature the company's Guiding Stars rating system, as shown on a cereal price tag at a South Portland, Maine, store on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013. A new study by researchers with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration and the University of Florida suggest that the rating system steers shoppers toward healthier choices in grocery stores. (AP Photo/Clarke Canfield)

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) -- A nutritional rating system using gold stars affixed to price labels on grocery store shelves appears to have shifted buying habits, potentially providing another tool to educate consumers on how to eat healthier, according to a new study.

The independent study examining a proprietary gold star system used in Maine-based Hannaford Supermarkets suggested it steered shoppers away from items with no stars toward healthier foods that merited gold stars.

"Our results suggest that point-of-sale nutrition information programs may be effective in providing easy-to-find nutrition information that is otherwise nonexistent, difficult to obtain or difficult to understand," the researchers wrote in the study, published last week in the journal Food Policy.

It's the most rigorous scientific study focusing on Guiding Stars, which was instituted in 2006 in Hannaford stores and is now licensed for use in more than 1,800 stores in the U.S. and Canada.