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Food neophobia influences food choice in school-aged children. However, little is known about how children with different degrees of food neophobia perceive food and to what extent different sensory attributes drive their liking. This paper explores liking and sensory perception of fibre-rich biscuits in school-aged children (n = 509, age 9–12 years) with different degrees of food neophobia and from five different European countries (Finland, Italy, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom). Children tasted and rated their liking of eight commercial biscuits and performed a Check-All-That-Apply task to describe the samples and further completed a Food Neophobia Scale. Children with a higher degree of neophobia displayed a lower liking for all tasted biscuits (p < 0.001). Cross-cultural differences in liking also appeared (p < 0.001). A negative correlation was found between degree of neophobia and the number of CATA-terms used to describe the samples (r = −0.116, p = 0.009). Penalty analysis showed that degree of food neophobia also affected drivers of biscuit liking, where particularly appearance terms were drivers of disliking for neophobic children. Cross-cultural differences in drivers of liking and disliking were particularly salient for texture attributes. Further research should explore if optimizing appearance attributes could be a way to increase liking of fibre-rich foods in neophobic children.

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Due to the widespread rejection by children of products with high‐fiber content, new approaches to meet the dietary recommendations on fiber intake are necessary. To understand which sensory properties influence this rejection, children's acceptability was examined in high‐fiber biscuits and drivers of liking were identified. One hundred and ten Spanish children (6–12 years old) evaluated the overall liking of eight commercial biscuits with variable fiber content and stated their preference. To study the drivers of liking, the samples were characterized through a quantitative descriptive analysis, the determination of the moisture and water activity as well as the instrumental evaluation of texture with a texture analyzer. It was suggested that the addition of fiber in biscuits reduced children's liking ratings. High‐fiber samples were sensory and instrumentally described as harder, crispier, and more chewing than the samples with medium and low fiber content. The main sensory driver of liking identified in this study was the soft texture. Despite their hard texture, high‐ and medium‐fiber samples were chosen as the preferred ones for 14% of the children that participated when they included chocolate taste. Drivers of disliking identified in this study were related to the addition of fruit as a filling or as dehydrated pieces. This knowledge about children's acceptability of high‐fiber products might be of interest for the food industry with the aim of developing well‐accepted products that supply nutritional deficiencies associated with the fiber intake.