Have you ever been asked to take part in a survey about a new food product? You were probably asked to rate how much you liked the product along a word-based scale? With today’s widespread use of emoji we wondered if selecting emoji might work just as well.
Liking for food is traditionally measured using a 9-point liking scale
The nine-point liking scale is a widely used tool in consumer research. For use with children or clinical populations the words are replaced with drawings of faces. An illustrated version of the scale works in all languages and for people who are unable to read.
Traditional 9-point liking scale
Emojis are used widely in everyday communication
Recently, researchers have studied the use of emoji as an alternative to word-based responses in consumer research.
EmojiTracker; this tool captures real time emoji usage on Twitter
Emoji are widely used by people in everyday communication, especially in social media. This familiarity with emoji for expressing feelings may mean they can provide more or equally accurate measures as word-based responses to product experiences. To date, the use of emoji to measure consumer responses to foods is limited.
Our study
We conducted a study to determine whether we can use emoji to measure how consumers react to foods. The study included:
1400+ consumers from New Zealand and Singapore
Aged 25 – 55 years
Who were daily users of a smart phone and emoji in texts/email messages
Were asked to select emoji that best represented each level of liking on the traditional nine-point liking scale
When thinking about food experience.
Our findings
Our recent study identified a set of emoji that could be used in New Zealand and Singapore to represent nine levels of liking:
Traditional nine-point liking scale (above) and newly developed emoji scale (below) (Emoji 13.1 in Apple iOS 14.5, https://emojipedia.org)
The same nine emoji could be used in New Zealand and Singapore to represent the words used on the traditional scale.
Next steps
Trial the emoji scale with consumers.
Watch this space to find out more details about this research.
Kia ora, my name is Savannah Dais. During the ’21-’22 summer break I completed an internship with the Consumer Dimensions of Future Foods (CDFF) programme, as part of the Feast team. This internship opportunity arose through the Pūhoro STEM Academy, of which I have been a member since 2016.
Seaweed: what is it?
The research aim of my internship was to develop prototypes for ‘future foods’, using edible red seaweed as an ingredient. Populations around the world have been harvesting red seaweed for food and medicinal uses for many thousands of years.
In Japan, it is known as ‘nori’, while the red seaweeds that are indigenous to Aotearoa New Zealand are collectively called ‘karengo’ (or ‘parengo’ in Eastern dialects). In Aotearoa, Māori traditionally harvested karengo from tidal rocks in spring and winter and used it as a winter food source. The karengo was dried with the salt on it and often kept for months for use as a ‘kinaki’ (relish).
Wakatū Incorporation, one of the industry partners on the CDFF programme, is interested in the health benefits and consumer acceptance of eating karengo in different forms.
Product development: balancing foreign and familiar
In my project, I developed three different prototype foods using nori provided by the Cawthron Institute as a substitute for karengo:
Dumplings
Spring rolls
Vegeballs
Seaweed is not a familiar product in the modern New Zealand diet, so the quantity of seaweed to include in these products required experimentation. I began with small amounts and increased quantities until the seaweed was visible and noticeable by taste and texture. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, consumer testing in the Feast laboratory was not possible. The consumers who tasted my products were 20 whānau members and acquaintances.
Seaweed dumplings are promising!
The dumplings were a great success, receiving feedback such as:
“nice and appetising,”
“would buy from the supermarket”
“wanted more.”
This feedback is extremely promising for a future product.
Fried (left), steamed (bottom/right) and frozen (top/right) dumplings
Spring rolls are a whānau favourite
The spring rolls were the latest product developed within the experiment, but quickly proved to be promising. The spring rolls used the same filling as the dumplings. While I did not have time to collect consumer feedback for the spring rolls, they were a whānau favourite.
A deep fried spring roll
Vegeballs require further development
The vegeballs need some work but tasters enjoyed the idea of a vegeball. Consumers responded with contradicting feedback regarding the texture. Some consumers enjoyed the softness while others did not. Overall, consumers reported the vegeballs as bland. With a bit more experimenting, the desired texture and taste of the vegeballs can be achieved.
Fried vegeballs
Optimistic future for seaweed foods
The use of seaweed as a food ingredients received feedback from consumers such as:
“Adds extra colour and flavour”
“A great healthy alternative for protein”
Overall, this feedback highlights opportunities for new product development with seaweed. The seaweed products I developed will be included in future consumer studies within the CDFF programme, to further collect of consumer responses on seaweed products.
Team work makes a difference in work quality
As a summer intern with CDFF project, I learned about working in a team. Clear communication and giving/receiving valuable feedback improved the quality of my work. This internship helped me to acquire team-work skills and the confidence to speak within groups.
I also presented my findings to Māori businesses (Wakatū Incorporation and Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu) who are developing sustainable seaweed products for New Zealand and overseas markets. The experiences I shared during my internship will be beneficial for my future in the workforce. I also got a taste for seaweed!
Thank you to my supervisors Prof Joanne Hort and Dr Meika Foster and Massey University, High Value Nutrition and Pūhoro STEM Academy for making this research possible. Thank you to Cawthron Institute for providing the seaweed.
Are you interested in completing an internship with the Consumer Dimensions of Future Foods team? Please get in touch with one of our researchers!
Plant-based foods have exploded in popularity in response to shifting consumer values for health, sustainability, and animal welfare. Creating plant-based products may be an appealing venture to Māori businesses. They could deliver to consumer desires while addressing human and planetary wellbeing. Making sustainable and healthy foods that tell Māori stories, and/or alignment with tikanga Māori (Māori protocols) could increase the product value. However, there are few high-value plant-based foods made by Māori. Understanding why that is will contribute to Māori success in future foods.
Tikanga: knowledge, values, and practices that inform culturally appropriate behaviour. Food can align with tikanga Māori if it is produced in a way that is aligned to cultural values. Farming sustainably and ensuring the wellbeing of land and water is an example of how food production could align to tikanga Māori.
Land is vital to Māori prosperity
Of the 1.2m hectares under Māori ownership, 9% is suitable for growing plant crops.
Many land titles are in small blocks. These can be highly productive and have a lot of potential. However, it can be difficult to grow crops at scale across many small blocks.
Māori land is the foundation of Māori assets:
Māori have less assets in horticulture compared to other natural resource industries. There may be opportunities for Māori to diversify their assets into plant crops. However, new horticulture ventures can require significant investment over lengthy periods. Ventures for plant-based food products may also look risky because it is unclear whether consumers would accept these new products.
The future foods frontier is an exciting, if uncertain, space for Māori businesses
So, there are various challenges in making a successful plant-based food. If Māori can overcome these, they may be able to offer unique products. Creating foods in a way that aligns with Māori values could add distinct value to products. If consumers knew that a product had been made in a way that aligns to tikanga Māori, they may be more likely to purchase it.
This is crucial in an increasingly crowded market. Collaboration among Māori and with non-Māori will be key to success at the future foods frontier. Sharing knowledge about the opportunities and challenges in this space will unlock pathways forward.
Research by the Future Foods Catalyst team will scope further opportunities and challenges to enable Māori businesses to lead plant-based food developments in Aotearoa New Zealand. Interviews with Māori industry players in 2021 and 2022 will highlight these.
Producers of meat alternatives and the media have been promoting plant-based products quite extensively. They say these products are healthier, better for the environment, and more appealing in taste and texture than animal meat.
Let’s look at some of the research around these nutrition and health claims.
Nutritionally, meat and meat alternatives are NOT the same
Strong evidence shows that plant proteins like legumes, soy and nuts are good for our health.
However, messages on the packaging of plant-based burgers like
“100% plant-based”
“Made from plants”
“Better for you”
may lead consumers to think that such processed products are just as healthy as fresh vegetables.
In fact, plant-based burgers rarely use fresh ingredients. What is more, they have less protein and more salt than beef burgers. And because they are often made with coconut or palm oil, they can be high in saturated fat.
Algae and insects are sustainable alternatives to meat. Nutritionally, however, they are not the same. Yes, they tend to be lower in fat. But they are also lower in protein. Algae and insects are also not usually eaten as the main part of a meal. They tend to be a snack, like roasted seaweed or insect protein bars. Or they can be a food ingredient (cricket flour), especially in Western contexts.
Cultured meat (i.e., meat grown from animal cells) may be very similar to animal meat nutritionally. However, it is not currently widely available.
There is a health halo around new alternative proteins
Newer meat alternatives might have a ‘health halo’. Consumers may think that these products have the same health benefits as fresh vegetables or other plant-based foods.
In addition, because of the positive environmental and sustainability messages around plant-based foods, consumers may think all meat alternatives are therefore also healthy.
New products have much potential to benefit health
As science and technology advance, there is growing potential for new foods to be healthier than existing foods. For instance, future protein products can be formulated to be lower in fat and higher in protein, fibre, vitamins and minerals than meat.
There is a lot of marketing around the health benefits of new meat alternatives. However, the effects of plant-based meats, insects, algae and cultured meat on our long-term health have not been well studied.
The best way to know how these products impact our health is to have more nutrition studies which
follow large groups of people,
are longer in duration, and
are conducted under controlled conditions.
Only then can we start to decipher the health halo and know for sure if new meat alternatives live up to all the hype.
This post is Part 1 of a series on why consumers choose meat alternatives. Watch our blog space for more.
Supermarkets now have a wide range of ‘alternative products’ for consumers who want to reduce or avoid animal-based foods. These alternative products usually do not contain meat, egg, or dairy. But what kinds of products exactly do we mean when we talk about alternative products?
Dairy alternatives
Dairy alternatives include plant-based ingredients for milk, yoghurt, cheese, sour cream, etc.
Consumers often use terms like ‘nut milk’ or ‘coconut yoghurt’. We also find them on product packages. However, these terms are not technically correct. In fact, to avoid confusion, it is currently debated in many countries whether plant-based drinks are allowed to use terms like ‘milk’ on their packaging.
Dairy alternatives have a very different nutritional composition: e.g., plant-based dairy alternatives often have a much lower protein content than conventional dairy products.
are mostly used as a meal ingredient. An exception could be roasted seaweed as a snack.
These alternative products may not be novel at all for some non-Western cultures. However, they are not similar to any other product typically used as part of a Western diet. They would therefore suit consumers who are not afraid to try something new.
Within the FFC programme, we are working on developing products with Karengo, a native seaweed. We will include these products in future consumer testing studies. Further research around Karengo’s nutritional value is the focus of another Catalyst Programme (through the Cawthron Institute).
Meat alternatives
This is the most diverse category, and it is the one our programme focuses on.
Traditional meat substitutes include classic vegetarian products, legumes, or nuts – such as veggie burgers, chickpeas, or tofu. These products do not aim to imitate meat. Their preparation is often different from the way that meat is prepared, which may be a barrier for consumers that do not usually consume such products.
Plant-based meat analogues aim to imitate meat but are made from plants. These products may be of interest to those who choose to avoid or reduce meat consumption but still desire meat-like products. As these products are prepared/used just as conventional meat, plant-based meat analogues may help with a transition from a meat-based to a more plant-based diet.
Meat-eating consumers often do not like these products as much as ‘real’ meat, e.g., because the flavour or texture does not compare. This may be a barrier to repeated consumption.
In the FFC programme, we aim to determine which sensory attributes the consumer values in these products.
Cell-cultured meat is a potential future alternative to the meat products we consume today. It is made by growing meat from animal cells (e.g., salmon, cow or duck) in a laboratory by feeding them with nutrients. Because cell-cultured meat is made from animal cells, its composition is identical to meat – it is not a plant-based product.
Cell-cultured meat looks, cooks, and tastes very similar to animal meat. It may therefore be more appealing than plant-based meat analogues to consumers who desire an animal-based diet.
Cell-cultured meat is currently not available in Aotearoa New Zealand. If/when it is, its success will depend on consumer demand. The FFC programme is conducting studies to measure current consumer perception of cell-cultured meat. This will help to determine whether there is a future market for this alternative protein. For these studies on cell-cultured meat, we collaborate with researchers from the University of Auckland and the University of Canterbury, who are part of another Catalyst Programme within the MBIE Future Foods Platform.
Many new food products fail. Yet, they had been highly liked during consumer testing. Clearly, there is more to choosing foods than just liking a product in a test.
This leads researchers to explore other ways of measuring how consumers experience foods.
Consumer eating vegan burger
Emotions drive food choices
We need to understand how food makes people feel. What is their emotional response? Different sensory characteristics of food such as
taste
smell
texture
appearance
make people feel different emotions. These emotions drive decision making when purchasing and consuming food.
For example, the meaty appearance or smell of a plant-based burger could make someone feel worried or nervous that it’s real meat, and so they chose not to eat it.
Plant-based burger patties vary in sensory characteristics
Industry uses emotional response to food products
The food industry also uses food-evoked emotions for:
Product differentiation
Differentiating between products that are similarly liked
Marketing
Aligning marketing and branding with food-evoked emotions or vice versa
Product development
Developing products with specific emotion-evoking properties
Assessing if changes in product formulation result in positive or negative emotions
Matching emotional profile of competitor product
Identifying consumer groups
Grouping consumers according to their emotional response
Methods to measure emotions
Methods to measure emotional repose to food products are either direct (explicit) or indirect (implicit).
Direct Methods
Indirect Methods
Require people to think about how they feel. We use:
Do not require people to think about how they feel. We measure (amongst others):
Where a combination is not possible, we recommend self-report questionnaires. After all, the best way to know if someone feels an emotion is to ask.
Verbal self-report questionnaires are the most popular. Consumers are given a list of emotions. From these, they select or rate the ones they associate with the product. These emotion lists can be generic to all food (e.g., EsSense ProfileTM) or specific to the food of interest (e.g., a consumer-defined list).
As part of our research, we are generating a consumer-defined emotions list specific to plant-based burgers.
Consumers assessing how a product makes them feel
Emotions are context dependent
Depending on location, people can have different feelings towards the same food. When measuring emotions, it is recommended to mimic real consumption situations. This better captures the emotions people feel in real life.
To generate our consumer-defined emotions list, we are recreating situations typical to eating a burger (e.g., in a living room or a pub). For that, we use digital immersive technology. This helps study participants imagine they were in these situations when they assess how the burger patty makes them feel.
Consumers in a recreated bar/restaurant
See also Rebekah’s previous blog post to learn more about the use of context and digital immersive technology in consumer research.
Watch our video to find out why consumers need to take multiple bites or sips when we ask them if they like your product.
Transcript:
It takes several bites to measure consumer acceptance of plant-based foods
How can we determine what consumers really want? Well, when we ask them, we should capture their product experiences as accurately as we can.
How? Traditionally we ask consumers to taste a single bite or sip of a product and indicate how much they like it. But, measuring liking alone is not enough to understand the full consumer product experience in detail. Researchers have reached beyond liking by measuring emotional responses to products, together with liking. Just think about how eating a piece of chocolate makes you feel.
Even better… Have you noticed how your sensory experiences of food often change from the first bite or sip, as you chew and even after swallowing? To capture these changes across the whole eating experience, researchers have created new tools called ‘temporal methods’.
Next question, if you are eating a burger, or drinking a coffee, do you stop eating or drinking after one bite or sip? The answer is no (unless it tastes really bad!). You are likely to take a number of bites/sips until you are satisfied, or until the burger or coffee is finished. We think it is important for researchers to capture the eating experience over multiple bites or sips, and use temporal methods to capture liking and emotional responses during the complete product experience.
We have adapted a temporal tool called temporal check-all-that-apply (TCATA) that captures product experience over time, to measure emotional and liking responses to food across multiple bites/sips.
Why is this approach useful for future foods? It allows us to link consumer sensory experience, with liking and emotional responses across multiple bites. This means we can better identify what drives them to accept or reject a food. This can tell us, for example if consumers enjoy the final bite of a product just as much as their first bite. This information will help us to identify what makes people reject or accept plant-based products.
Our next steps: Within the Consumer Dimension of Future Foods project we are continuously developing and/ or adapting methods to accurately understand consumer wants and needs. Watch this space for more updates on our advances in sensory and consumer testing methods.
Flexitarianism is said to be good for people and planet
Vegans and vegetarians enjoy a number of health benefits:
They live longer.
They have lower risks of diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
They have a healthier weight.
Our planet benefits too: Vegetarian and vegan diets emit much less greenhouse gases and use fewer natural resources. Meat production to feed the global population uses significant land, water and animal feed and contributes to pollution and global warming.
However, many people find cutting out all animal products too difficult – or they don’t want to. A more feasible approach might be to become flexitarian. Estimates say if a large number of people reduced their intake of animal products by two-thirds, the environmental benefits would surpass those of vegetarian diets.
Tofu salad
Consumers need to consider the whole meal
Burgers, meatballs and sausages are currently the top-selling plant-based protein products. They are often, however, ultra-processed fast-food items that are usually eaten with chips and sugar-sweetened drinks. These nutrient-poor additions contribute substantial calories. This offsets any health benefits of swapping to plant-based burgers.
LikeMeat Pea-based sausages
Yet, the “health halo” surrounding these new plant-based fast-food products could be attracting new flexitarians.
A health halo is the perception that a food is good for you even with little/no evidence.
Consumers need to choose nutritious alternatives
Novel plant-based meats are not as nutritious as traditional plant foods like beans, tofu and nuts. A recent study (see below) found that novel plant-based diets:
Contained higher fat, sodium and sugar levels
Lacked important micronutrients.
When comparing specific diets, it found that:
Flexitarian and vegetarian diets based on traditional plant foods were the most nutritious overall.
Vegan diets based on novel plant-based meats and dairy alternatives
were the least nutritious.
did not meet daily requirements for several micronutrients.
Plant-based meats had similar calories as animal meats, but were
higher in carbohydrate, fat and sodium
lower in protein and micronutrients.
So, choose carefully when transitioning to a flexitarian, vegetarian or vegan diet.
Flexitarianism has unexplored psychological impacts
Flexitarian diets may appeal to some individuals who want control over their diet.
Diets that involve cutting down meat carry the promise of better health and weight loss. Therefore, some may pursue flexitarian diets for the wrong reason, that is, to lose weight quickly instead of wanting to be healthier.
Also, when some flexitarians talk about their diet, they refer to meat as a ‘bad food’.
Flexitarianism is also a difficult diet to follow. Individuals must consistently resist temptation and decide when and when not to eat meat. This is in contrast to vegetarians or vegans who cut out a group of foods completely.
Our project has a clear focus
We are:
Working with the food industry to increase nutritious options for plant-based meals.
Studying the impact of different meat alternatives on health.
Trying to understand people’s motivations for becoming flexitarian.
Providing consumers with information to make the right choices.
The aim is to make nutritious and tasty plant-based alternatives easy to incorporate into our everyday diets.
Plant-based meat alternatives such as meat-free sausages, burgers, meatballs may be a convenient way to substitute meat products.
Plant-based products need to be appealing, easy and normal
Vermeulen1 suggested that for a plant-based product to be accepted (and therefore bought repeatedly) it will need to be:
Appealing
Taste and price matter! Products need to be tasty and affordable, to name but a few. Consumers think though that many plant-based meat alternatives don’t taste as good as the meat variant. Yet, they often have a similar price. We plan to investigate what an ideal meat alternative may taste like. This will help the industry develop products that meet consumer demands.
Convenience is key! A meat-eater might find it easier to use meat alternatives if these can be prepared in the same way as meat. An example: Chickpeas and lentils are very nutritious and versatile. However, they are not commonly used to replace meat. People are simply unsure how to prepare them.
Consumers want “normal” foods! Most consumers don’t like to stand out from the crowd. They want to be mainstream. An example: A study showed that meat-eaters were less likely to choose vegetarian dishes when these were presented in a separate box on a restaurant menu than when they were listed among the meat-dishes2.
Placing meat alternatives in the meat section helps uptake
In the USA, a supermarket chain found 23% higher sales of plant-based meat alternatives when these products are presented alongside their meat counterparts3. Beyond Meat has played an important role in this development: They refuse to stock their meat-free burgers to retailers unless they will be included in the supermarket’s meat section4.
Meat shopper photo by Cindy Amimer from Pexels; alternative products shelf in A-NZ supermarket photo by Caroline Giezenaar
In Aotearoa, plant-based meat alternatives are usually displayed on a vegetarian/vegan shelf. As such, meat-eating consumers may believe that these products are not relevant to them. In fact, they may not even see the range of meat alternatives available.
Maybe soon, more and more A-NZ supermarkets will stock meat-free products in the meat sections, which might result in an increased uptake.
1 Vermeulen, S.J., Park, T., Khoury, C.K. and Béné, C. (2020), Changing diets and the transformation of the global food system. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci., 1478: 3-17. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.14446
Being flexitarian is becoming more and more popular. If you work in the food industry, you will have stumbled across this term quite a bit recently.
Because flexitarians outnumber vegetarians, pescatarians and vegans, they drive the food industry to offer more plant-based products.
Flexitarians are flexible about when they eat meat
A flexitarian is someone who is actively reducing, or has actively reduced, the amount of animal flesh they consume, but is not eliminating it completely from their diet. How often they consume meat can vary from having a “meatless Monday” to having meat only once a month. Flexitarians put emphasis on eating more vegetables, plant-based meat replacements, nuts, or legumes.
The term “flexitarian” was first used in the early 1990s. It is a mashup up the words “flexible” and “vegetarian”.
Motivations are unique to a person
As is the case so often, the reasons why flexitarians want to eat less meat differ from person to person. It could be that they:
Flexitarians and our research
The Future Foods Catalyst project plans to study flexitarians to further understand the motivations and barriers they have for reducing their meat intake. Knowing what flexitarian consumers look for when they choose plant-based products will better enable the food industry to meet the needs of flexitarians.
