"Welcome on board" : Overall liking and just-about-right ratings of airplane meals in three different consumption contexts-laboratory, re-created airplane, and actual airplane

The main objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of contexts on overall liking and just-about-right (JAR) ratings of airplane meals. A rice dish (meal type A) and a pasta dish (meal type B) were assessed. Per meal type, two variants were produced (variant 1 and 2). Two hundred forty-two consumers were randomly allocated to evaluate one of the four meals, first in a laboratory setting and then in a re-created airplane environment. In addition, 222 passengers did the same assessments during an actual flight. Specific meals (A1, B1) were less liked in the laboratory than in the re-created airplane. In general, no differentiation in overall liking occurred per meal type between the two tested variants in the laboratory, whereas these two variants were significantly differentiated in liking in the re-created airplane and the actual airplane. Mean overall liking ratings in the re-created airplane did not significantly differ from the mean overall liking ratings in the actual airplane. The observed JAR ratings did not differ much between the re-created airplane and the actual airplane. In summary, the re-created airplane as a testing location produced more similar test results to the actual airplane than the traditional laboratory. Practical applications: Sensory consumer testing in re-created contexts may produce results with a higher external validity than laboratory testing and therefore offer a cost-efficient alternative to extensive sensory consumer testing in real-life contexts.</p

"Welcome on board" : Overall liking and just-about-right ratings of airplane meals in three different consumption contexts-laboratory, re-created airplane, and actual airplane

The main objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of contexts on overall liking and just-about-right (JAR) ratings of airplane meals. A rice dish (meal type A) and a pasta dish (meal type B) were assessed. Per meal type, two variants were produced (variant 1 and 2). Two hundred forty-two consumers were randomly allocated to evaluate one of the four meals, first in a laboratory setting and then in a re-created airplane environment. In addition, 222 passengers did the same assessments during an actual flight. Specific meals (A1, B1) were less liked in the laboratory than in the re-created airplane. In general, no differentiation in overall liking occurred per meal type between the two tested variants in the laboratory, whereas these two variants were significantly differentiated in liking in the re-created airplane and the actual airplane. Mean overall liking ratings in the re-created airplane did not significantly differ from the mean overall liking ratings in the actual airplane. The observed JAR ratings did not differ much between the re-created airplane and the actual airplane. In summary, the re-created airplane as a testing location produced more similar test results to the actual airplane than the traditional laboratory. Practical applications: Sensory consumer testing in re-created contexts may produce results with a higher external validity than laboratory testing and therefore offer a cost-efficient alternative to extensive sensory consumer testing in real-life contexts.</p

Supermarket shopper movements versus sales and the effects of scent, light, and sound

Common sense assumes that supermarket sales of specific products are driven by the number of visitors and by their behavior during their visit. In addition, certain shopping ambiances probably stimulate a certain shopper behavior, resulting in more sales. Surprisingly, these relationships have rarely been experimentally tested in real-life supermarkets. Number of shoppers, shopper movement patterns, and sales of selections of white wines, coffees, and fruits in a medium-size supermarket were monitored over an 18-week period. Wines were visited for longer (9.5. s) than coffees (4.4. s) and fruits (4.5. s), but visitors to wines were relatively stationary and visits resulted less often in a sale (1 sale per 41.2 visits) than visits to coffees (1 sale per 21.7 visits) and fruits (1 sale per 3.7 visits). Visit frequency correlated positively with higher sales for coffee (Beta = 0.64, p <. 0.001) and for fruit (Beta = 0.33, p = 0.02) but not for wine. Wine, fruit, and coffee sales increased with the number of directional changes during a visit (p <. 0.001). Sales correlated positively with visit duration only for wine (Beta = 0.74, p <. 0.001). Local variations in scent, sound, and light conditions did not affect visit frequency or sales, but did affect speed during coffee (p = 0.04) and wine (p = 0.03) visits

Aroma effects on food choice task behavior and brain responses to bakery food product cues

Bread, and especially whole grain bread is an important source of dietary fibers. It was tested with behavioral and fMRI measures whether bread becomes more attractive when it is presented with bread aroma. Twenty-eight healthy normal-weight women were exposed to images of bakery products (brown bread, white bread and cookies) without aroma or with a congruent (bread aroma) or non-congruent (“warm wood”) aroma. In general, product effects were larger than aroma effects. Images of brown bread were preferred over images of white bread as shown by direct comparisons, choice reaction times, as well as liking and wanting scores. Aroma had no effect on liking and wanting, but did affect food choice task behavior, where images of brown bread were preferred more often in the presence of warm wood aroma and images of cookies were preferred more often in the presence of bread aroma. The fMRI data suggest that bread aroma may increase the salience of bakery products compared to no aroma and a non-food aroma. Specifically, bread aroma induced greater activation for cookies in areas related to reward anticipation. The correlations between behavioral measures and brain responses suggest lower attention for and a habitual response to brown bread and higher attention and a more goal-directed response to white bread. In conclusion, aroma can affect choice task behavior for brown and white bread albeit in an incongruent manner. The more habitual response to brown compared with white bread suggested by the neural data underscores that nudging towards brown bread consumption with (bread) aroma will probably not be effective

Aroma effects on food choice task behavior and brain responses to bakery food product cues

Bread, and especially whole grain bread is an important source of dietary fibers. It was tested with behavioral and fMRI measures whether bread becomes more attractive when it is presented with bread aroma. Twenty-eight healthy normal-weight women were exposed to images of bakery products (brown bread, white bread and cookies) without aroma or with a congruent (bread aroma) or non-congruent (“warm wood”) aroma. In general, product effects were larger than aroma effects. Images of brown bread were preferred over images of white bread as shown by direct comparisons, choice reaction times, as well as liking and wanting scores. Aroma had no effect on liking and wanting, but did affect food choice task behavior, where images of brown bread were preferred more often in the presence of warm wood aroma and images of cookies were preferred more often in the presence of bread aroma. The fMRI data suggest that bread aroma may increase the salience of bakery products compared to no aroma and a non-food aroma. Specifically, bread aroma induced greater activation for cookies in areas related to reward anticipation. The correlations between behavioral measures and brain responses suggest lower attention for and a habitual response to brown bread and higher attention and a more goal-directed response to white bread. In conclusion, aroma can affect choice task behavior for brown and white bread albeit in an incongruent manner. The more habitual response to brown compared with white bread suggested by the neural data underscores that nudging towards brown bread consumption with (bread) aroma will probably not be effective