Karen Muller1, Nathalie Martin2, Claire Chabanet4, Michel Rogeaux3, Sylvie Issanchou4

1) ADRIANT®, France; 2) NESTLE CRN, Switzerland; 3) Danone Vitapole, France ;
4) INRA, UMR1129 FLAVIC, France

Food likes and dislikes can change over time. Several studies showed that repeated exposures to a product induce changes in preferences depending on products characteristics (arousal potential - Berlyne, 1963) and on consumer characteristics (food experience, neophobia – Zajonc, 1968, Pliner, 1982).

In a competitive market, it is at stake to better evaluate the potential of new products and manage innovation. In that context, we tried to determine a protocol that could reveal this dynamics of liking and explain it with consumer or product factors.

The first aim of the present experiment was to study the impact of home consumption (and consumed quantities) on dynamics of liking. The second aim was to investigate the links between the dynamics of liking and the perceived complexity and familiarity of the drinks. Two protocols on three flavoured sparkling waters were designed to study dynamics of liking during repeated consumptions. The first one integrated both home consumption and laboratory tasting over 8 weeks. The second one, run over 9 days, did not integrate home consumption.

The two protocols showed changes in liking for two of the studied drinks. Statistical significance and size effect were higher in the 8-week protocol. Home consumption and consumed quantities seem to play a major role on changes of liking during repeated exposures.

Consumers’ evaluation of perceived complexity and familiarity of the drinks allowed to characterise them according to their optimal activation levels (OAL). We identified different patterns of evolution of liking according to the drinks and to the consumers’ OAL. These results confirm the influence of products and consumers characteristics on dynamics in line with the theory of Dember and Earl (1957).