We are thrilled to have UGA’s own Dr. Chen Zhen as our keynote speaker this year.

Dr Zhen is leading a study recently funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture. In partnership with international colleagues, Zhen will observe and compare the influence of nutrition labeling systems used in the U.S. and the European Union (EU) to inform future policy decisions in those countries.

The four-year, $794,000 award will help the researchers better understand how the use of supplementary nutrition information on packaged food labels, particularly front-of-package (FOP) labels, have unintended consequences across the socioeconomic spectrum.

Dr. Zhen’s  work centers on the economics of nutrition and healthy eating. “There’s been a long-standing interest in the causal effect of providing additional information on food labels to consumers, particularly interpretive labeling that communicates more than just numeric facts.”