Effects of sensory labels on taste acceptance of commercial food products

This study was performed to examine effects of sensory labels on taste acceptance of commercial food products. Specifically, the effects of two factors of sensory labels, expected sensory quality (ESQ) and similarity between ESQ and perceived sensory quality (PSQ), on taste acceptance were examined. The levels of ESQ similarity between ESQ and PSQ blind taste acceptability (BTA), and informed taste acceptability (ITA) of 12 commercial food products given two different items of information were analyzed. Most of the presented labels were comprised of product information related to sensory properties including taste, flavor, texture, and appearance. Twelve of the labels were selected from the front side of the 12 products' packages, respectively, and the other 12 labels were made to provide more detailed sensory information of each product. There was a significant positive correlation between the ITA and the similarity of ESQ and PSQ When the similarity of ESQ and PSQ was higher than the ESQ the ITA was significantly higher than BTA. A quadratic equation explaining the relationship between the [similarity of ESQ and PSQ/ESQ] and [ITA/BTA] was suggested, with R-2 of 0.993. The equation could be used for determining the level of similarity between ESQ and PSQ/ESQ to increase ITA over BTA by a certain level. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.