Research suggests that people use their overall feeling towards objects to make inferences about their objective characteristics, without being necessarily aware of the origin of these inferences. Commonly, the halo effect is positive (i.e., the presence of a positive characteristic leads to the attribution of other positive features) whereas the horn effect occurs when the evaluation of an object is influenced by a negative attribute.Regarding food, simply presenting food using a label has been shown to influence the ratings of unrelated food characteristics and that many of the factors determining food choices are related to how the food has been produced and processed. When a product is produced traditionally, individuals attach to it positive attributes, such as health and taste, that go beyond objective production-specific properties, while some consumers show negative attitudes towards processed and industrialized food and skepticism toward new technologies for food processing.This contribution investigates the role of food product attributes on consumer choices focusing on different production processes of cheese, labeled as ‘traditional’ or ‘industrial’, and aims at documenting a novel halo (positive) effect of the Tradition label versus a horn (negative) effect of the Industrial label on the implicit and explicit perceptions of healthiness and tastiness of a food product. Results showed a Tradition halo effect and an Industrial horn effect on explicit perceptions of tastiness and healthiness. Implicit perceptions of healthiness seem to depend to some extent on pro-environmental beliefs. Results suggest that tradition-labeled food should be introduced in conventional supermarkets instead of investing in the opening of new specialized stores.
