Flavor Profiling by Consumers Segmented According to Product Involvement and Food Neophobia

Yun-Mi Lee,Seo-Jin Chung,John Prescott,Kwang-Ok Kim

doi:10.3390/foods10030598

Abstract

The relationship between food-related individual characteristics and performance in sensory evaluation was investigated. The study focused on differences in discriminative ability and perceptual sensitivity according to levels of product involvement or food neophobia during the intensity rating of sensory attributes in consumer profiling. Consumers (N = 247) rated the intensity of attributes for seven flavored black tea drinks and completed the Food Neophobia Scale and the Personal Involvement Inventory measuring product involvement with the flavored black tea drink. In the higher product involvement (IH) group and the lower food neophobia (NL) group, the number of sensory attributes representing the sample effect and of subsets discriminating the samples were greater, and more total variance of the samples was explained. The higher the product involvement or the lower the food neophobia, the greater the differentiation in characterizing samples with more attributes in the intensity ratings. Interestingly, the high food neophobia (NH) group showed less active performance compared to the NL group during the sensory evaluation overall, but the NH group was more concerned about unfamiliar attributes and samples. The results implied that the positive attitude resulting from high product involvement and low food neophobia may induce more active behavior and better performance during the sensory evaluation.

Highlights

Sensory descriptive tools using untrained panelists/consumers have recently received attention as legitimate alternatives to the application of conventional sensory analytical tests
That consumers will show different degrees of attention or activeness in processing the sensory properties of food products, depending on how involved they are in the food product or the extent to which the product elicits food neophobia, and that this will be reflected in the performance of sensory evaluation
The study focused on the individual consumer characteristics that influence the attitudes toward food, namely levels of product involvement and food neophobia

Summary

Introduction

Sensory descriptive tools using untrained panelists/consumers have recently received attention as legitimate alternatives to the application of conventional sensory analytical tests. These novel tools, including free choice profiling (FCP) [1], sorting [2], flash profiling (FP) [3] napping® [4], check-all-that-apply [5], and rate-all-that-apply (RATA) [6], are both more rapid and easier to implement by untrained panelists than conventional analytical tests [7]. Sensory profiling methods using untrained panelists are considered extremely useful, even though there is some concern that consumers may not provide the detailed, robust, and reproducible results typical of methods that use trained panelists [10]. The criteria for classification should be carefully considered so that the results can show more clearly how consumers perceive the product

Objectives

Methods

Conclusion