Consumer acceptance of salt-reduced “soy sauce” bread over repeated in home consumption

Abstract

The stability of liking for salt reduced/re-formulated bread was tested in a home use test for three weeks. Salt was partially replaced by naturally brewed soy sauce. Fifty-six consumers were provided with regular bread (variant A) and another 59 were provided with salt-reduced soy sauce bread (variant B). During this period, the consumers were asked to exclusively consume the provided bread and to fill in a questionnaire each day from Monday till Saturday (i.e. 15 times in total). They were asked to provide information on the number of slices eaten per day, the type of filling they used and how much they had liked each slice of bread (in combination with the different types of fillings) on a nine-point hedonic scale. On average, the liking ratings of the regular bread (A) and the salt-reduced soy sauce bread (B) developed in different ways over the repeated in home exposure. The liking for the regular bread significantly decreased over time, whereas the liking for the salt-reduced bread, increased steadily although not significantly over the 15 exposure days. On an individual level, significant increases or decreases over time can be observed as well as flat time-preference curves. The results further support the notion that naturally brewed soy sauce is a functional salt replacer in Western foods. The results also confirm that first impressions of a new product may have little predictive value for its later success.