Ingredient Legibility
One third of consumers say a clear ingredient list makes the brand message more credible. The implication, of course, is that this goes far beyond food labels.
In August 2026, FoodMinds (a food industry communications firm and a division of Padilla) surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults who had primary or shared responsibility for grocery shopping in their households. The findings from the resulting Conscious Consumption Index were that 54% of respondents had either started buying a food or beverage or increased their purchases of one as a result of it being less processed, having fewer additives or containing ingredients they preferred. A separate third of respondents said a clear ingredient list on the package would be the most effective way to make the brand message more credible.
That second figure is the one to take note of. It's not at all surprising; it's just a reflection of where persuasion actually works with this type of consumer.
The message isn't what builds credibility. The composition is. Or, more precisely, it's the legibility of the composition. A brand that makes its content readable has in fact done far more of the persuasive work than a brand that runs a campaign on quality, naturalness or trust.
This is a far more useful frame than the one that treats transparency as a virtue. Transparency is a moral position. Legibility is a design decision, and one that has very real consequences for whether the shopper keeps moving in towards the product.
The message isn't what builds credibility. The composition is. Legibility is the vehicle by which the composition does its job.
What the data is actually describing
The FoodMinds survey is about behavior driven by perception of ingredients rather than by fact about ingredients. Over half of the respondents said they made a purchase decision because a product appeared less processed or contained ingredients they preferred. It's all about perception, not the actual nutritional facts.
This is all very significant for the brand's role. The consumer isn't waiting for a chemist's analysis. They're waiting to know whether what they're holding is the kind of thing they'd want to have. If the label can answer that question in a way that is immediately comprehensible, then the product has earned consideration. If it can't, the product has lost consideration before the consumer even decides to reject it. They move on.
The 1/3 who say clear ingredient lists are key to building credibility are actually just describing the removal of friction. They're not being rewarded for transparency per se. They're being unblocked. The brand that makes the composition legible isn't winning trust through virtue. It's simply removing the moment of hesitation that kills the sale.
The opacity cost
The vast majority of categories outside of food don't see legibility as a persuasive tool. They look at the message. That's the gap.
A services business with a complicated fee structure has an ingredients list issue. The scope of work is the composition. The pricing terms are the composition. The renewal terms and the carve-outs are the composition. If you present that in language that is difficult to parse, the prospective client will experience the same friction as the shopper in the supermarket, standing in front of a label full of chemical names they don't recognize. They won't necessarily walk away from the service. They'll slow down. They'll delay. They'll bring in more people. They'll ask for more time. Deals that get stuck often get stuck at the composition stage rather than the pricing stage.
The same thing is true of warranties, subscription terms, healthcare billing statements, sustainability statements and the AI use disclosures that companies are now required to provide in a variety of circumstances. The product or service behind it may be perfectly good. The offering is of a very high standard. But if the quality of the writing is so poor that it's illegible, the consumer is left to fill in the blanks, and they will do so with suspicion rather than generosity.
A deal that gets stuck tends to get stuck at the composition stage rather than the pricing stage. The lack of transparency creates the kind of hesitation that appears to be negotiation but is in fact just friction.
Legibility is not simplification.
There's a reflex in marketing to take 'make it clearer' to mean 'make it shorter' or 'take things out'. That's often the wrong answer. A fully formed ingredient list that's well formatted (well organized, properly labeled, written in language the consumer can understand) is far more legible than a short list of rather vague descriptors.
What legibility demands is that the piece be written in terms that the reader can actually use to assess it. With food, it could be grouping the ingredients by function, labeling the functions alongside the unfamiliar terms, or labeling the absence as much as the presence. In a professional services proposal, it could break down what each stage produces, clearly state the dependencies and make clear what is not included before the client has to go and find out.
The point is that legibility isn't about reduction. It's about structure. A very long list of ingredients can be extremely legible. A very short list can be completely opaque. The issue isn't how much information you give; it's whether you give it in a way that allows the reader to form a coherent picture of what they're looking at.
FoodMinds SVP Andrea Carrothers put it quite simply: 'Companies can build credibility by telling people what's in their product and why.' The second part of that statement is the key one. You have to tell people what's in it. You have to tell them why.
Applying the frame outside food
The grocery category is useful as a signal not because of anything special about food per se, but because of the level of ingredient scrutiny it entails. People buy groceries quite frequently, and the feedback loop between what people do and what the sales data shows is very short. That makes the category's dynamics very transparent to researchers in a way that isn't the case in other categories (professional services, healthcare, insurance, etc.).
But the underlying mechanism is not category specific. Any offering with a degree of compositional complexity is subject to the same dynamic. The consumer, client or patient is making a judgment about whether what they're looking at is what it appears to be. If the information they need to make that judgment is present but illegible, they're left with a decision they're not in any position to make with confidence. Some will go ahead and make the decision anyway. Most won't.
The strategic point is straightforward. Legibility is a conversion lever, and most organizations treat it as a compliance function. The brief gets translated into legal language. The invoice is structured for the accountants, not the client reading it. The product page tells you what the product is; it doesn't tell you what it's made of. The disclosure is there, but it's in a place where it won't be read.
In each of those cases, the organization has the information. They've decided (either by default or by design) not to make it available. The cost of that decision is borne when the buyer comes along, reads it without the necessary clarity to commit, puts the product back and walks away.
FoodMinds. (2026, October 26). New FoodMinds research reveals the tensions shaping today's grocery shoppers. Business Wire. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261026/new-foodminds-conscious-consumption-index
Note: FoodMinds is a food-industry communications firm and division of Padilla. The 2026 Conscious Consumption Index is commissioned research. Survey of 1,000 U.S. adults with primary or shared responsibility for household grocery shopping, conducted August 5-17, 2026. Figures cited: 54% increased or started purchasing products perceived as less processed or with preferred ingredients; 33% said a clear ingredient list would most make brand messages more believable. Direct quotes from SVP Andrea Carrothers were retrieved from the Business Wire press release.
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