Holistic and consumer-centric assessment of beer: A multi-measurement approach

Consumer perception of plant-based yoghurt: Sensory drivers of liking and emotional, holistic and conceptual associations

Plant-based (PB) yoghurts is a rapidly expanding food category with the potential to reduce many of the negative environmental impacts associated with the farming of dairy cattle and related greenhouse gas emissions. Within the context of growing consumer demand for PB products, this research aimed to identify the main drivers of consumer acceptance of PB yoghurts through data drawn from a consumer study of 113 adult New Zealand participants who tasted a representative range of commercially available vanilla-flavoured PB yoghurts, and provided sample evaluations using a multi-variable measurement approach comprised of liking ratings, emotional responses, sensory characterisations, and holistic / conceptual perceptions. The primary finding of this study was that the overall acceptability of currently available PB yoghurts is low, leading to poor attitudes and low willingness to consume PB yoghurts. The examined products were characterised by the presence of several sensory attributes that negatively impacted consumer liking, either because they were unexpected or because their intensity level was too high. Among the main sensory issues identified were perceived sourness (acidity), lumpy appearance and non-white colour. In contrast, vanilla flavour and a creamy/smooth texture were identified as the main drivers of liking. The multi-response approach used in this study enabled a comprehensive characterisation of the products. One of the key insights gained was that negative emotional activation, caused by the presence of unexpected sensory attributes in the samples, was the main driver of product rejection. This was likely due to the disparity between consumers' sensory expectations, formed primarily based on their experience with dairy yoghurts, and the actual experience upon tasting the PB yoghurts. Overall, the findings indicate that the sensory properties of currently available PB yoghurts are a significant barrier to their adoption by most consumers and that addressing these sensory deficiencies is essential to achieving mainstream market acceptance of these products.

Consumer Studies: Beyond Acceptability—A Case Study with Beer

Beer is one of the most consumed alcoholic beverages in the world; its consumption and preference are evolving from traditional industrial beers of low complexity to novel craft beers with diverse flavour profiles. In such a competitive industry and considering the complexity of consumer behaviour, improvement and innovation become necessary. Consequently, consumer science, which is responsible for identifying the motivation behind customer preferences through their attitudes, perception and behaviour, has implemented strategies ranging from simple hedonic measurements to several innovative and emerging methodologies for a deeper understanding of the variables that affect the product experience: sensory, affective and cognitive. In this context, we offer a review inspired by previous research that explores some of the quantitative and qualitative methods used in consumer studies related to beer consumption, ranging from traditional approaches (acceptability, purchase intention, preference, etc.) to techniques that go beyond acceptability and allow a different understanding of aspects of consumer perception and behaviour (segmentation, expectations, emotions, representation, etc.). Also, innovative applications (contexts, immersive technologies and virtual reality, implicit measures, etc.) and current trends related to consumer science (Internet, social media, pairing, product experience, etc.) are addressed.

Emotional responses to taste and smell stimuli: Self-reports, physiological measures, and a potential role for individual and genetic factors

Taste and olfaction elicit conscious feelings by direct connection with the neural circuits of emotions that affects physiological responses in the body (e.g., heart rate and skin conductance). While sensory attributes are strong determinants of food liking, other factors such as emotional reactions to foods may be better predictors of consumer choices even for products that are equally-liked. Thus, important insights can be gained for understanding the full spectrum of emotional reactions to foods that inform the activities of product developers and marketers, eating psychologist and nutritionists, and policy makers. Today, self-reported questionnaires and physiological measures are the most common tools applied to study variations in emotional perception. The present review discusses these methodological approaches, underlining their different strengths and weaknesses. We also discuss a small, emerging literature suggesting that individual differences and genetic variations in taste and smell perception, like the genetic ability to perceive the bitter compound PROP, may also play a role in emotional reactions to aromas and foods.

Factors affecting the choices of adoption/non-adoption of future technologies during coronavirus pandemic

The literature describes the potential for using future services technologies in public health emergencies. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic is resulting in unparalleled challenges to healthcare services in almost all countries, requiring innovative methods of practicing across health professions. Factors affecting pharmacists' choice of telemedicine adoption/non-adoption are yet to be examined, especially in Italy. Thus, we investigate the behavioral intentions of pharmacists related to telemedicine, as a future services technology, in the current pandemic context. Our model draws on the theory of planned behavior and extends it to investigate the mechanisms underlying attitude formation to telemedicine adoption through a cross-sectional approach, using a questionnaire-based survey. The model has medium-to-high power in predicting telemedicine adoption intention, and the two significant direct antecedents of the target construct (attitude to telemedicine, and perceived behavioral control) are almost equally important. The psychological mechanisms linked to the tendency to implement emerging technology are complex and have major management effects. Studies in this field are yet to focus on the issues that affect the pharmacists' decision regarding adopting or not adopting telemedicine, as a future services technology.

Sensory drivers of perceived situational appropriateness in unbranded foods and beverages: Towards a deeper understanding

Measures of product performance that effectively predict food and beverage choices are highly sought after. A simple method to add value to hedonic data is that of item-by-use (IBU) appropriateness, where consumers are presented with a list of possible consumption situations and asked to indicate how well a product fits them. A persistent misconception surrounding this approach is that it is relevant for discriminating between different products, but not between variants within the same product category, which is often the focus of sensory and consumer studies. To provide a deeper understanding of the sensory underpinnings of appropriateness, the present work presents experimental evidence from six consumer studies (116-210 consumers per study) employing unbranded product variants from the same category. Products were successfully discriminated based on IBU appropriateness in all studies, even when sensory variation was unidimensional and controlled (such as a basic lemonade recipe varying in sugar content). While product differentiation based on the sensory profiles was greater than differentiation based on appropriateness, the results clearly show that sensory variation, in and of itself, is sufficient to elicit differences in perceived appropriateness. As expected, the degree of inter-product differences in appropriateness was approximately linearly related to the degree of differences in sensory profiles. Finally, while some sensory properties independently affected perceived appropriateness, the magnitude (and in some cases the direction) of the effects often depended on the level of product liking.

Discrimination of Isointense Bitter Stimuli in a Beer Model System

Prior work suggests humans can differentiate between bitter stimuli in water. Here, we describe three experiments that test whether beer consumers can discriminate between different bitterants in beer. In Experiment 1 (n = 51), stimuli were intensity matched; Experiments 2 and 3 were a difference from control (DFC)/check-all-that-apply (CATA) test (n = 62), and an affective test (n = 81). All used a commercial non-alcoholic beer spiked with Isolone (a hop extract), quinine sulfate dihydrate, and sucrose octaacetate (SOA). In Experiment 1, participants rated intensities on general labeled magnitude scales (gLMS), which were analyzed via ANOVA. In Experiment 2, participants rated how different samples were from a reference of Isolone on a 7-point DFC scale, and endorsed 13 attributes in a CATA task. DFC data were analyzed via ANOVA with Dunnett's test to compare differences relative to a blind reference, and CATA data were analyzed via Cochran's Q test. In Experiment 3, liking was assessed on labeled affective magnitude scales, and samples were also ranked. Liking was analyzed via ANOVA and rankings were analyzed with a Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel test. Experiment 1 confirmed that samples were isointense. In Experiment 2, despite being isointense, both quinine (p = 0.04) and SOA (p = 0.03) were different from Isolone, but no significant effects were found for CATA descriptors (all p values > 0.16). In Experiment 3, neither liking (p = 0.16) or ranking (p = 0.49) differed. Collectively, these data confirm that individuals can discriminate perceptually distinct bitter stimuli in beer, as shown previously in water, but these differences cannot be described semantically, and they do not seem to influence hedonic assessments.

Multi-response approaches in product-focused investigations: Methodological variations across three case studies

Consumers' product experiences are increasingly uncovered using approaches that extend beyond acceptability and sensory perception. The present research is situated in this context and adopts a multi-response approach to jointly obtain attitudinal, conceptual, emotional, situational and/or sensorial evaluations. With the aim of greater methodological understanding, three case studies were conducted with samples in three product categories (fruit- and vegetable-based beverages (n = 10), seafood (n = 6) and chocolate (n = 7)) using consumers from New Zealand (n = 196), India (living in New Zealand) (n = 138) and China (n = 167), conducted in central location (CLT) or home-use test (HUT) settings. Showcasing this multi-response approach and demonstrating its versatility in product research is the main contribution of the research. Across the three case studies different combinations of response types and scaling formats were successfully used (including CATA (check-all-that-apply) questions, yes/no questions and rating scales), and it was also found that tasted foods and written stimuli (food names) served equally well as stimuli. The degree of liking or disliking for individual samples was a useful benchmark against which to interpret the other types of responses, and situational appropriateness, obtained as item-by-use (IBU) responses always contributed unique insights. Facial emoji to obtain product-emotion associations yielded less valuable insights than a conceptualisation task. As expected, and in accordance with the rationale for adopting a multi-response approach, the combination of response types yielded greater stimuli insights than would otherwise have been gained. This held for each of the three case studies and supported future applications using a multi-response approach that extends beyond many related initiatives by including four response types in each case study.

Perceived Situational Appropriateness as a Predictor of Consumers' Food and Beverage Choices

This research investigated whether perceived situational appropriateness (defined as the degree of fit between product and intended usage situations) is predictive of consumer choices for foods and beverages, on the theoretical premise that intended usage situation acts as a frame of reference in orienting choices. Extant research on the topic, though suggestive of a link, is very limited in scope and almost completely lacking with regards to choice behavior (as opposed to other aspects, such as food acceptability or intake). To address the hypotheses, data collected in a series of 15 experiments (N = 2,813 consumers in total)—covering a wide range of product categories and usage situations—are presented. In all studies, participants evaluated a set of stimuli varying with respect to perceived appropriateness (low to high), and evaluated each stimulus either monadically using a choice likelihood scale or by performing a discrete choice task. Regression analyses from all studies consistently indicated that perceived appropriateness significantly predicted choice response. The results were robust with respect to variation in product category and experimental protocol and, overall, strongly support the notion that appropriateness can provide a simple yet powerful (in some case accounting for over 50% of variance) predictor of consumer choice. Effect sizes varied substantially: perceived appropriateness explained from a minimum of 3% to over 65% of variance in consumer choice, and this variation was linearly related to the degree of product heterogeneity in the product sets. This research also investigated possible moderators of the link between appropriateness and choice, by relating the results to consumers' product familiarity and involvement. While both traits significantly (and positively) affected choice, they did not interact with appropriateness. Possible explanations for these results, as well as other possible candidate moderators to explore in future research, are highlighted.

Global Profile: Going beyond liking to better understand product experience

Over the last few years, interest in collecting an increasing variety of information in order to acquire a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the consumer experience with products has steadily grown. The present study was designed to develop a methodological approach to explore the Global Profile of products within a category. A product-specific questionnaire was developed using one-on-one online interviews conducted with a modified version of the Repertory Grid Method (RGM) combined with semiotic analysis, EmoSemio, extended to cover all the main dimensions of product experience of the category of processed tomato. A 96 item questionnaire - including liking, sensory properties, emotions, emotional and functional conceptualisations and contextual appropriateness measures - was developed and employed in a home use test with 196 consumers who evaluated 9 products (one per day). All the statements were found to discriminate between products with the exception of one. A Multiple Factor Analysis showed that emotions were highly correlated with functional/emotional conceptualisations, while sensory properties were mainly related to emotional conceptualisations (memories) and uses in the recipes. The information provided by the simultaneous collection of these different dimensions allows to go beyond liking and may be used in product development and innovation in order to better understand the consumer experience of a product.