Health-related claims and symbols may be potentially influential in supporting informed choice, furthering healthier consumer food choices, and strengthening competitiveness of the European food industry in bringing about food products that support a healthier lifestyle. However, current insights into how health symbols and claims are understood and used in real-world shopping situations are limited, making it difficult to derive recommendations on the wording and design of health claims and symbols, including the context in which these appear on the food label. The objectives of this project are to determine how health-related symbols and claims, in their context, are understood by consumers, and how they affect purchasing and consumption, taking into account both individual differences in needs and wants and country-specific differences with regard to use of health claims and symbols. Guidelines will be developed for EU policy directed towards health-related symbols and claims, and a set of methods will be developed that can be used by policy-makers and industry to assess the effects of health claims and symbols as these appear on the market. The project will draw heavily on the involvement of stakeholders from the whole food sector to ensure results with high practical relevance.