Effect of Serving Plate Types and Color Cues on Liking and Purchase Intent of Cheese-Flavored Tortilla Chips.

Cristhiam E Gurdian,Bin Li,Damir D Torrico,Witoon Prinyawiwatkul

doi:10.3390/foods10040886

Cristhiam E Gurdian, Bin Li + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/foods10040886

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Abstract

Foods’ overall liking (OL) and purchase intent (PI) are influenced by visual inputs, such as color cues and serving plate types. Cheese-flavored tortilla chips (CFTC) from two formulations (A and B) with a noticeable color difference (∆E = 4.81) were placed on different serving plates (plastic, foam, and paper) and presented monadically to N = 83 consumers using a randomized/balanced block design in two sessions. Consumers evaluated likings of overall visual quality, color, crunchiness, saltiness, overall flavor (OF), and OL using a 9-point-hedonic scale, attribute appropriateness on a 3-point-just-about-right (JAR) scale, and PI using a binomial (Yes/No) scale. Color differences between A and B influenced crunchiness and saltiness liking and perception, which together with OF liking and formulation, mainly determined OL of CFTC. Although having similar fracturability (N) and sodium content, formulation A had higher crunchiness and saltiness likings. PI was influenced by crunchiness, saltiness, and OF liking with 37, 49, and 60% increases in PI odds per liking-unit increase, respectively. Plate type had minimal effect on the sensory liking of CFTC. The brighter and less-yellow color of CFTC could positively influence liking of crunchiness and saltiness, which significantly contributed to OL and PI. These findings are useful to understand consumers’ acceptability and perception of foods when varying visual inputs.

Highlights

Consumers are influenced by intrinsic and extrinsic cues when evaluating product quality
Intrinsic cues refer to those attributes that are part of the product’s objective nature whereas extrinsic cues are characteristics that can be altered in the product without changing the objective nature of the product [1]
The resulting L* (0—darkness, 100—lightness), a* (− greenness, + redness), and b* (− blueness, + yellowness) values were subsequently used to calculate the magnitude of total color difference (∆E) [14] between formulations according to Equation (1)

Summary

Introduction

Consumers are influenced by intrinsic and extrinsic cues when evaluating product quality. Intrinsic cues refer to those attributes that are part of the product’s objective nature (e.g., color, aroma, flavor) whereas extrinsic cues (e.g., packaging material, nutritional label, claims) are characteristics that can be altered in the product without changing the objective nature of the product [1]. Product cues can alter expectations, perceptions, emotions, consumption patterns, purchase intent (PI), and other food-related behaviors in consumers. Buhrau and Ozturk [2] found that hedonic expectations and consumption willingness of meals were affected by the format of presentation (text vs picture) for consumers with lowhealth consciousness. The health-related perceptions of these consumers remained constant. Improved hedonic perceptions and consumption willingness among consumers with low-health consciousness occurred when meals were presented using the picture format. Bolhuis and Keast [3] investigated the effect of cutlery type

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