The effects of demographics and brand information on acceptability of commercial beverage products

Abstract

This study was conducted to understand the sensory and non-sensory factors that were related to consumer acceptability of 10 commercial beverages. In the descriptive analysis, eight trained panelists developed and evaluated 18 sensory attributes. In the consumer test, 360 consumers were recruited for testing based on age and gender. Preference maps were obtained to observe relationships between descriptive data and consumer acceptability. Sensory attributes and consumer acceptability differed significantly among the beverages. Sweet, sour, and fruit flavors seemed to be drivers of liking, bitter, red ginseng, and reishi mushroom flavors, the drivers of disliking. Consumers tended to give higher overall acceptability scores to beverages when presented with product information than without information. There were marked differences in overall acceptability according to age and gender.