Introduction:

Nutritional profiling systems (NPS) are mainly used in front-end labeling policies in order to make the purchase and consumption choice conscious and healthy.

Objetive:

This study systematically reviewed evidence from interventions on the effect of NPS in the front-of- package on food purchases.

Materials and methods:

A bibliographic search was carried out in electronic sources from Medline, Elsevier, Scielo and Lilacs, of experimental studies and intervention between 2012 and 2022. A total of 14 articles were included in the review. They were analyzed according to the intervention modality used: 4 studies analyzed the effect of NPS in a real purchase situation and 10 evaluated purchase perception/intention.

Results:

According to the modality of intervention, the 6 studies that analyzed the NPS-warning system, all recorded healthier purchases compared to the control groups. While for the NPS-NutriScore, Health Star Rating and Multiple Traffic Lights were effective in the decision to purchase healthier foods, in 5 of 7 studies for the first NPS, in 4 of 7 for the second and in 4 of 8 for the third, compared with control groups.

Conclusions:

Findings of this study suggest that NPSs may be effective for healthy purchase choices, even so it is necessary to strengthen the system and policies with nutritional food education campaigns.