Annu Mehta

In today's global markets, the constant arrival of new products represents a challenge for the food industry to offer distinct choices to consumers, primarily due to the parallel sensory attributes and pricing structures of the available food options. Innovators must employ methodologies beyond traditional sensory analysis to ensure the product's success. Researchers must, therefore, explore the entire product experience to understand its influence on consumer behaviours. Food choices are multifaceted, influenced by various factors, including individual physiological and psychological characteristics and intrinsic and extrinsic product attributes. As a result, consumers' decisions are shaped by the multisensory information derived from products they encounter in supermarkets. This review aims to comprehensively examine the factors influencing consumer food choices, from initial product encounters to consumption. The review explores the impact of repetitive tasting on the consumer's attitudes and intentions towards novel products. Additionally, the review investigates which extrinsic attributes capture consumer attention in supermarket settings. It also delves into the effects of extrinsic product attributes on both explicit and implicit emotions and expectations raised about the sensory properties of the product and, ultimately, their purchasing behaviours.

This study investigated the effects of repeated exposure on acceptability, emotional responses, and purchase intention of a novel symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY) ice cream, compared to a control (no extra additives) and a guar gum ice cream sample, using three sessions: a survey (SCOBY information) and two tasting sessions (repeated‐exposure effect). Participants initially conducted blind evaluations of all samples, followed by an informed tasting. The blind tasting sessions evoked high arousal emotions for the SCOBY ice cream and positive emotions for the control and guar gum samples. The second session showed a rise in liking for sweetness (5.6–6.5) and texture (5.6–6.7) of the SCOBY samples. Sensory attributes such as flavor (odds ratio = 1.7) and texture (odds ratio = 1.7), coupled with positive emotions such as “happy” (odds ratio = 3.8), “pleasant” (odds ratio = 0.4), and “interested” (odds ratio = 3.8) affected purchase intention. The findings of this study provide valuable insights into participants' liking and emotional responses during repeated exposures to stimuli.Practical Applications: The study's findings show that repeated exposure to novel products enhances consumer acceptance and emotional responses, challenging the current formats of traditional sensory studies. This implies that the introduction of novel products can be successful with repeated tasting exposure strategies. The focus on improving familiarity with sensory attributes, especially flavor and texture, can positively impact purchase intention. This insight can guide product positioning, marketing campaigns, and flavor development efforts, encouraging the successful integration of innovative products into the market.

Packaging is crucial in attracting consumer attention, conveying product identity, influencing product perception and affecting approach-based consumer behaviours. The present exploratory study aimed to gain insights into the effects of packaging on consumer experiences and the factors driving willingness to buy different orange juice products based on packaging. Eye tracking and facial expressions were used to capture the consumer perception journey, from the initial interaction to the final product evaluation. The study also examined hedonic liking, explicit emotions and different label attributes in the evaluation stage, and the importance of texture, price and the New Zealand (NZ)-made logo in the validation stage. Results showed that the packaging's physical features significantly affected consumer's attention during the initial interaction stage. Implicit emotions provided deeper insights into consumers' preferences in the orientation stage. Nutritional information gained maximum visual attention (fixation counts = 0.40) in the evaluation stage, while the NZ-made logo (odds ratio = 15.62) drove purchase intention. The study revealed that the packaging that attracted the maximum attention was not necessarily the one with the highest liking score. Moreover, consumers may not pay much visual attention to attributes (price, r = −0.22) that they reported to be important. By advancing our knowledge in this field, marketers and product designers can refine their strategies and create packaging that captures visual attention and evokes positive emotional responses, ultimately influencing consumer behaviours.

With the growing demand for sustainable practises, the food industry is increasingly adopting circular economy approaches. One example is recycling the symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY) used in kombucha fermentation to create value-added products. However, consumer acceptance of such novel products remains unclear. To address this, the present study examined consumer attitudes towards ice cream made with SCOBY as an ingredient and how this affected their intention to consume it. Drawing on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and additional constructs such as emotions and food neophobia, an online survey was conducted with New Zealand consumers (N = 170). Results showed that the TPB constructs significantly predicted the intention to consume SCOBY ice cream. Moreover, by adding emotions to the constructs, the model’s explanatory power was enhanced. Attitudes, subjective norms, and emotions were the main predictors of intention, which in turn was found to be the main predictor of behaviour. Participants’ beliefs about the safety and taste of SCOBY ice cream were significantly correlated with their intention and behaviour, as were the opinions of nutritionists/dietitians, friends, and family. The model accounted for 21.7% of the variance in behaviour and 57.4% of the variance in intention. These findings can be used to plan marketing strategies related to waste-to-value-added products such as SCOBY ice cream.

Augmented reality (AR) applications in the food industry are considered innovative to enrich the interactions among consumers, food products, and context. The study aimed to investigate the effects of AR environments on the sensory responses of consumers towards different yogurts. AR HoloLens headsets were used to set up two AR environments: (1) AR coconut view (ARC) and (2) AR dairy view (ARD). Hedonic ratings, just-about-right (JAR), check-all-that-apply (CATA) attribute terms, emotional responses, purchase intent, and consumer purchasing behaviors of three types of yogurts (dairy-free coconut, dairy, and mixed) were measured under ARC, ARD, and sensory booths (SB). The results showed that the liking scores of dairy and mixed yogurts were generally higher than the coconut yogurt regardless of the environment. The interaction effect of yogurts and environments was statistically significant in terms of appearance, taste/flavor, sweetness, mouthfeel, aftertaste, and overall liking. JAR and penalty analysis revealed that consumers penalized the coconut yogurt for being “too much” in sourness, “too little” in sweetness, and “too thin” in mouthfeel. For the CATA analysis, attribute terms positively associated with overall liking (such as “sweet”, “smooth”, and “creamy”) were selected for dairy and mixed yogurts, whereas the attribute terms negatively associated with overall liking (such as “firm”, “heavy”, and “astringent”) were only selected for coconut yogurts. Regarding yogurt-consumption behaviors, the purchase intent of dairy and mixed yogurts was higher than that of the coconut yogurt, and taste and health were considered to be the most critical factors for yogurt consumption.

Kombucha is a yeast and bacterially fermented tea that is often described as having an acetic, fruity and sour flavour. There is a particular lack of sensory research around the use of Kombucha with additional ingredients such as those from the pepper family, or with hops. The goal of this project was to obtain a sensory profile of Kombucha beverages with a range of different ingredients, particularly of a novel Kombucha made with only Kawakawa (Piper excelsum) leaves. Other samples included hops and black pepper. Instrumental data were collected for all the Kombucha samples, and a sensory focus group of eight semi-trained panellists were set up to create a sensory profile of four products. Commercially available Kombucha, along with reference training samples were used to train the panel. Kawakawa Kombucha was found to be the sourest of the four samples and was described as having the bitterest aftertaste. The instrumental results showed that the Kawakawa Kombucha had the highest titratable acidity (1.55 vs. 1.21–1.42 mL) as well as the highest alcohol percentage (0.40 vs. 0.15–0.30%). The hops sample had the highest pH (3.72 vs. 3.49–3.54), with the lowest titratable acidity (1.21), and, from a basic poll, was the most liked of the samples. Each Kombucha had its own unique set of sensory descriptors with particular emphasis on the Kawakawa product, having unique mouthfeel descriptors as a result of some of the compounds found in Kawakawa. This research has led to a few areas that could be further studied, such as the characteristics of the Piperaceae family under fermentation and the different effects or the foaminess of the Kawakawa Kombucha, which is not fully explained.

Emotional responses elicited by foods are of great interest for new product developers and marketing professionals, as consumer acceptance proved to be linked to the emotions generated by the product in the consumers. An emotional measurement is generally considered an appropriate tool to differentiate between the products of similar nutritional value, flavour, liking and packaging. Novel methods used to measure emotions include self-reporting verbal and visual measurements, and facial expression techniques. This study aimed to evaluate the explicit and implicit emotional response elicited during the tasting of two different brands (A and B) of energy drinks. The explicit response of consumers was assessed using liking (nine-point hedonic scale), and emotions (EsSense Profile^®—Check-All-That-Apply questionnaire), and implicit emotional responses were evaluated by studying facial expressions using the Affectiva Affdex^® software. The familiarity of the product and purchase intent were also assessed during the study. The hedonic rating shows a significant difference in liking between the two brands of energy drink during the tasting session. For the explicit emotional responses, participants elicited more positive emotions than the negative emotions for both energy drinks. However, participants expressed “happy”, “active” and “eager” emotions more frequently for energy drink A. On the other hand, the implicit emotional responses through facial expressions indicated a high level of involvement of the participants with energy drink B as compared to energy drink A. The study showed that overall liking and the explicit and implicit emotional measurements are weakly to moderately correlated.