Liking and sensory determinants of perceived naturalness and healthiness. A study on pizzas with young adults in a natural eating environment

Déterminants de l'appréciation et de la perception sensorielle de la naturalité et de la salubrité. Une étude sur les pizzas auprès de jeunes adultes dans un environnement alimentaire naturel

Anne Saint-Eve (), Isabelle Souchon (), Louis-Georges Soler () and Julien Delarue
Additional contact information
Anne Saint-Eve: SayFood - Paris-Saclay Food and Bioproduct Engineering - AgroParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement
Isabelle Souchon: SQPOV - Sécurité et Qualité des Produits d'Origine Végétale - AU - Avignon Université - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement
Louis-Georges Soler: UMR PSAE - Paris-Saclay Applied Economics - AgroParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement
Julien Delarue: UC - University of California

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: This study aims to determine the sensory drivers of liking, perceived naturalness, and healthiness of pizzas in an ecological setting. The approach consisted in evaluating beliefs, perceptions, and liking by consumers of a large range of 16 pizzas representative of the French commercial market and selected on environmental and nutritional criteria. Sixty-four pizza consumers were invited to take 16 different meals in real-setting conditions of consumption at a university restaurant with pizza as the main course. Pizzas were also characterized by a trained sensory panel. This study confirms a positive link between liking and healthiness and naturalness, even though individual differences were evident, with some consumers prioritizing naturalness while others favored healthiness. Frozen pizzas are perceived as highly processed but were well liked when evaluated in the dining condition. Overall, preferences were mainly driven by the presence of multiple pieces of vegetables, sauce, and color. Drivers of dislike were mostly related to texture (stickiness and difficulty to cut). Although preference, naturalness, and healthiness mappings are relatively similar, our models show a discrepancy in the way texture drives preferences and perceived healthiness. This suggests that texture may play a critical role in the trade-offs between liking and healthiness, and that there may be a fine line between what is considered a desirable texture and a healthy texture. Individual regressions provided insights into consumer diversity, while combining sensory profiling with consumer-based methods offered a comprehensive understanding of product perception.

Keywords: Healthiness; Naturalness; Beliefs; Plant/animal protein ratio; Multi-component food; Field testing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-04732750v1
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Food Quality and Preference, 2025, 123, pp.105330. ⟨10.1016/j.foodqual.2024.105330⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-04732750v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04732750

DOI: 10.1016/j.foodqual.2024.105330

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().