Virtual, augmented, and mixed reality as a versatile tool in food consumer behavior evaluation: Recent advances in aroma, taste, and texture incorporation

The perceptual behavior of consumers on a product displayed in the market has a vital role in analyzing the importance given to that product. Therefore, various strategies have been developed to understand this consumer behavior in the selection of products. Immersive technologies like virtual, augmented, and mixed reality are among them. With the foremost feature of immersion in the virtual world and interaction of users with virtual objects, virtual reality, and augmented reality have unlocked their potential in research and a user-friendly tool for analyzing consumer behavior. In addition to these technologies, mixed reality also has a significant role in investigating consumer behavior. Studies on immersive technologies in food applications are vast, hence this review focuses on the applications of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality in the food selection behavior of consumers. The behavioral studies are elicited to develop new products based on consumer needs, to understand the shopping behavior in supermarkets for real-time usage, and to know the influence of emotions in a selection of products. The findings suggest that virtual, augmented, and mixed reality induce immersion of the users in food selection behavioral studies. Information on the technological advancements in the tools used for bringing immersion and interaction are discussed for its futuristic applications in food. Though immersive technology gives users a realistic virtual environment experience, its application in food systems is in the budding stage. More research on human response studies would contribute to its innovative and inevitable application in the future.

Digital technologies to assess yoghurt quality traits and consumers acceptability

BACKGROUND

Sensory biometrics provide advantages for consumer tasting by quantifying physiological changes and the emotional response from participants, removing variability associated with self-reported responses. The present study aimed to measure consumers' emotional and physiological responses towards different commercial yoghurts, including dairy and plant-based yoghurts. The physiochemical properties of these products were also measured and linked with consumer responses.

RESULTS

Six samples (Control, Coconut, Soy, Berry, Cookies and Drinkable) were evaluated for overall liking by n = 62 consumers using a nine-point hedonic scale. Videos from participants were recorded using the Bio-Sensory application during tasting to assess emotions and heart rate. Physicochemical parameters Brix, pH, density, color (L, a and b), firmness and near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy were also measured. Principal component analysis and a correlation matrix were used to assess relationships between the measured parameters. Heart rate was positively related to firmness, yaw head movement and overall liking, which were further associated with the Cookies sample. Two machine learning regression models were developed using (i) NIR absorbance values as inputs to predict the physicochemical parameters (Model 1) and (ii) the outputs from Model 1 as inputs to predict consumers overall liking (Model 2). Both models presented very high accuracy (Model 1: R = 0.98; Model 2: R = 0.99).

CONCLUSION

The presented methods were shown to be highly accurate and reliable with respect to their potential use by the industry to assess yoghurt quality traits and acceptability. © 2022 The Authors. Journal of The Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.

Sensory Analysis for Cow Milk Product Development Using High Pressure Processing (HPP) in the Dairy Industry

High pressure processing (HPP) can be applied as an alternative thermal treatment of milk to maintain its natural and original sensory quality. Milk was processed at 600 MPa for 10 min or given thermal treatment at 125 °C for 4 s. Sensory evaluation of treated milk samples was conducted using the triangle and the acceptance and preference tests. The triangle test was used as a discriminative test to check whether there was a noticeable difference between both treated milk samples. The acceptance and preference test determined attributes of milk including colour, milkiness, creaminess, mouthfeel, and aftertaste based on the 5-point just-about-right (JAR) scale. In the triangle test, 89.5% of panellists were able to identify the odd sample and differentiate milk processed using high pressure from heat treatment. For the acceptance and preference test, 61% of panellists gave higher overall preference for the high pressure processed milk over heat-treated milk. The JAR evaluation showed no significant differences (p > 0.05) in all evaluated milk attributes which included milkiness, creaminess, mouthfeel, and aftertaste, with the exception of colour. Overall, high pressure processed milk scored better in terms of organoleptic properties as the penalty value for most attributes including colour, milkiness, mouthfeel, and aftertaste were lower than the penalty of heat-treated milk, except for creaminess. Therefore, to improve the acceptance and preference of high pressure processed milk, future development needs to focus on increasing creaminess of high pressure processed milk.

Editorial: Special Issue “Implementation of Digital Technologies on Beverage Fermentation”

In the food and beverage industries, implementing novel methods using digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), sensors, robotics, computer vision, machine learning (ML), and sensory analysis using augmented reality (AR) has become critical to maintaining and increasing the products’ quality traits and international competitiveness, especially within the past five years [...]