Consumers aren't naive – they never were. But there has been a shift, and it matters.
They're no longer passively scanning shelves. They're in hunting and discovery mode. Educated on food, ingredients, competitor brands and exactly what they're being sold – and by who – on TikTok. They're turning over packs. Photographing ingredient lists. Cross-referencing claims with Chat GPT and AI before they've even left the aisle.
And here's the thing that most FMCG brands still haven't reckoned with: finding out a brand has overstated its credentials doesn't frustrate them. It validates them. It makes them feel smart. That feeling spreads fast.
The TikTok effect on shopper behaviour
Social media, TikTok in particular – has fundamentally changed the consumer relationship with food and drink brands.
A decade ago, a consumer might have bought a product, enjoyed it, and moved on. Today, before they’ve even added it to the basket, there’s a reasonable chance they’ve seen a video breaking down its ingredient list, comparing it to a cheaper alternative, or exposing a claim that doesn’t hold up. Content creators have amassed audiences of millions around being the person who finds the lie. And their followers love them for it.
This isn’t just a wellness category problem. It’s spreading across food, drink, supplements, consumer products and beyond. The consumer who once would have taken a front-of-pack claim at face value now treats it as a hypothesis to be tested.
The front makes the promise. Social media tells them whether to believe it.
The UPF conversation has changed everything
The debate around ultra-processed foods has accelerated this shift dramatically. In the last five years, UPFs have moved from a niche nutrition topic to mainstream consumer conversation. Chris van Tulleken’s work, followed by significant media coverage and social content, has put ingredient lists in front of people who had never read one before.
The effect on shopping behaviour is measurable. Consumers now approach the back of pack like a fact-check. They’re looking for E numbers. They’re counting ingredients. They’re searching for words they don’t recognise – not out of curiosity, but out of suspicion.
Brands that built equity on vague functional claims are the most exposed right now. ‘Natural.’ ‘Boosted.’ ‘Goodness.’ Words that once worked on pack and needed little credential to back it up. Words that now trigger a raised eyebrow and an AI search.
The psychology behind the hunt
It’s worth understanding why consumers find the lie satisfying – because it’s not just about the product. It’s about identity.
Being the person who knows better is a social currency, it says ‘I know better, I’m consuming the right kind of content, and it makes my health better’. Spotting a misleading health claim, identifying an ingredient hidden in a long list, or recognising that a premium-priced product is functionally identical to a budget version – these moments feel like wins. They get shared. They reinforce a consumer’s sense of themselves as informed, savvy, not to be taken for a fool.
In FMCG, we can fall into the illusion that consumers engage with packaging the way a category consultant might – carefully, methodically, with full understanding of the claims hierarchy. That isn’t reality. Most shoppers make decisions in seconds. But a growing number return later, phone in hand, ready to scrutinise what they bought.
The questions they’re asking are not sophisticated. But they cut straight to the point.
Am I being ripped off? Does this actually work? How much of this ingredient do I need to have to feel something? Is the premium justified? Have they just put a nice label on something generic?
What this means for brand, packaging and retail strategy
The brands winning consumer trust right now share one quality: they have nothing to hide. Simple ingredient lists. Clear provenance. Honest portion sizes. No dressing up of inconvenient truths.
This doesn’t mean packaging needs to become a clinical data sheet. Clarity and character are not mutually exclusive. But the front of pack promise and the back of pack reality need to be aligned. The moment they diverge – and a consumer notices – the brand is in a more vulnerable position than it’s ever been – because that consumer now has a platform.
For consumer brands – transparency was always an ethical position. Today – it’s largely a commercial one.
The cost of getting caught in a half-baked-truth by a consumer who is already primed to find it – and who will post about it – is significantly higher than the cost of honesty upfront.
At best, it gets shared to a small personal following and forgotten. At worst, it lands in front of a food influencer with millions of followers who has built their entire audience around finding exactly this. And before you write that off as a consumer problem – ask yourself how you’d feel if your retail buyer or an investor saw your brand in that context before your next range review or monthly meeting.
The opportunity in all of this
Brands that understand this shift aren't on the defensive. They're using it.Radical ingredient transparency. Packaging design that invites scrutiny rather than deflecting it. Brands that show their working – not because they have to, but because it builds the kind of credibility that drives repeat purchase and real consumer following.
The consumer in hunting and discovery mode isn't your enemy. They're your most engaged potential advocate. If what they find when they turn the pack over matches what the front promised, you haven't just survived their scrutiny.
You've earned their trust.
A combination of social media, the UPF conversation, and a cultural shift toward scepticism has fundamentally changed how consumers engage with packaging for FMCG brands.
TikTok in particular has created a generation of shopper who treats a front-of-pack claim as a hypothesis to be tested rather than a statement to be trusted. Being the person who finds the misleading claim has become a form of social currency – it gets shared, it validates the consumer, and it spreads faster than any PR response can follow.
Ultra-processed foods or ‘UPFs’ – are products manufactured with industrial ingredients and additives that go beyond basic cooking processes.
The UPF conversation moved from a niche nutrition topic to mainstream consumer concern largely through Chris van Tulleken’s work and significant media and social coverage.
The commercial impact has been measurable: consumers now approach the back of pack like a fact-check, counting ingredients, looking for E numbers, and searching for words they don’t recognise – out of suspicion rather than curiosity.
Packaging design is the first and most visible expression of a brand’s honesty.
A hierarchy that buries the ingredient list, a format that makes claims prominent and sourcing invisible, or a visual identity that implies a positioning and experience which the product can’t substantiate – all of these are design decisions that create the gap a fact-checking consumer is looking for.
The most commercially effective packaging design in the current environment leads with what the brand is proud of and the experience which it delivers on, it makes the ingredient list and nutritionals easy to find and easy to read, and ensures the front of pack and the back tell the same story.
Audit your claims honestly – before your consumers do it for you. Go through every front of pack claim and ask whether it genuinely reflects what’s in the product and how it’s made.
Look at your brand and packaging subjectively – does your brand and the category positioning of your product paint a realistic picture? Do consumers keep coming back for more – or feel short changed?
If there’s a gap between what you’re promising and what you’re delivering, close it. The consumer doing the fact-checking isn’t going away. The only sustainable response is to make sure there’s nothing worth finding.
Your brand and packaging design is already being fact checked...
The only question is whether it passes – we build FMCG brands where the answer is always yes
Sign up to our building better brands newsletter
Free insights for scaling brands
