Consumer perceptions of novel fruit and familiar fruit: a repertory grid application

Abstract

To explore how consumers perceive novel and familiar fruit, repertory grid interviews were carried out with 60 New Zealand women. Participants described their perceptions of nine fruit varying in familiarity. The data analysis established a two-dimensional stimuli space that separated samples with respect to familiarity and the amount of preparation required. Fruit that was familiar was characterised as being well liked, easily available in shops and by a number of different use situations. The primary association with novel fruit was that it was expensive. The participants could not readily think of use situations for fruit they were unfamiliar with. Consumers were separated into groups according to the trait of food neophobia, which pertains to an individual's stable propensity to approach or avoid novel foods. When comparing the most neophobic (n = 14; avoids novel foods) and most neophilic (n = 14; approaches novel foods), individuals perceptual differences were uncovered pertaining to which of the fruit were considered novel and to the suitability of some usage situations (cooking and for children). This finding contributed to the growing evidence of the relationship between food neophobia and consumers' everyday food-related behaviour.

Older people's perceptions towards conventional and functional yoghurts through the repertory grid method

“…Functional yoghurts were described by similarity (objective) judgements (for instance fat content -low related to a low fat product as well as health benefits for a probiotic one), therefore consumers expressed their perception based on characteristic attributes as reported by previous research (Lefkoff-Hagius and Mason, 1993). Familiarity was the key driver in products' separation, actually for the Italian case, as well as the Spanish, Portuguese, Danish and Swedish the first principal axis could be interpreted as novel-common axis (Jaeger et al, 2005). Our findings confirmed other works (Tuorila et al, 1998;Arvola et al, 1999) regarding to lower expectations for unfamiliar products, the more the products were familiar the more they were recognized through beneficial and imagery attributes (Creusen and Schoormans, 1997).…”

Non-sensory factors in sensory science research

“…For example, the importance of context has consistently emerged in our work concerning convenience in fruit (e.g., Jaeger, 2003;Jaeger, Rossiter, & Lau, 2005). In the situation of wanting a piece of fruit while commuting home from work, aspects of convenience may pertain to how easy it is to get hold of the desired type of fruit, whether washing or peeling it is required, how to dispose of the peel or core after the fruit is eaten and how messy it is to eat.…”

Food Acceptance: The Role of Consumer Perception and Attitudes

“…On the contrary, consumer sensory panels generate easily understandable vocabularies, but have the disadvantages that they are too personal to be interpreted by anyone except the subject (Piggott et al 1990). One way to avoid these drawbacks and to obtain direct information about what sensations consumers perceive when eating food is to use the Repertory Grid Method (RGM) in conjunction with the Free Choice Profile (FCP) (Gomez et al 1998;Jahan et al 2005;Jaeger et al 2005;Hersleth et al 2003). The RGM is the term used to describe a set of techniques related to Kelly´s personal construct theory which can be used to investigate the individual constructs (Gains 1994) and it seem particularly suited to develop consumer-related vocabulary.…”