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Highlights A cross-cultural study using a between and within vegetable comparison approach (Denmark, n=88; France, n=206; Italy, n=110 and United Kingdom, n=93

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Food neophobia, i.e., the aversion to novel foods, and olfaction are both factors strongly affecting food choices. Mounting evidence suggests a higher arousal towards food as a key factor underlying the reluctance to eat what is unfamiliar to us. As the role of olfaction behind this phenomenon is poorly understood, we explored the associations between food neophobia and trait anxiety, olfactory functions (odor threshold, discrimination and identification) and retronasal aroma release from a reference food in a healthy cohort of 83 adult volunteers. We grouped participants in Low-Neophobics or neophilics (n = 35), Medium-Neophobics (n = 32) and High-Neophobics (n = 16) according to the widely recognized Food Neophobia Scale. Participants with higher neophobic tendencies were found to have marginally higher trait anxiety levels than neophilics (p = 0.10). A lower global olfactory functioning and odor discrimination abilities characterized High-Neophobics, while Medium-Neophobics showed a higher odor sensitiveness than Low-Neophobics. Lastly, High-Neophobics showed a lower extent of retronasal aroma release, likely due to a shorter duration of oral processing and higher anxiety-related physiological responses (such as breathing rate). In summary, this study supports the assumption that the conflicting relationship that neophobics have with food may be led by higher levels of arousal toward foods, rather than different chemosensory functions.

This paper aims to explore the impact of “mountain pasture product” information on the acceptability of local protected designation of origin (PDO) cheese produced from the raw milk of cows grazing in mountain pastures (P) or reared in valley floor stalls (S). A total of 156 consumers (55% males, mean age 41 years) were asked to evaluate their overall liking on a 9-point hedonic scale of four samples: Cheeses P and S were presented twice with different information about the origin of the milk (cows grazing on mountain pasture or reared in a valley floor stall). Demographics, consumer habits, and opinions on mountain pasture practice (MPP), attitudes towards sustainability, and food-related behaviours (i.e., diet, food waste production, organic food, and zero food miles products purchase) were recorded and used to segment consumers. The cheeses were all considered more than acceptable, even though they were found to be significantly different in colour and texture by instrumental analyses. In the whole consumer panel, the cheese P was preferred, while in consumer segments less attentive to product characteristics, this effect was not significant. External information had a strong effect: Overall liking was significantly higher in cheeses presented as “mountain pasture product”, both in the whole panel and in consumer segments with different attitudes (except for those with a low opinion of MPP).

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Free sorting tasks have been widely applied on different age segments to study the categorization of foods. However the method has received little attention in the investigation of older adults' perception of foods. Given the importance of understanding elderly perceptions in order to develop acceptable products, the aim of this study was to investigate the suitability of a free sorting task on different age groups of healthy elderly consumers. The role of sensory and hedonic dimensions, beside the role of familiarity, was considered to better understand the process of food categorization. A free sorting and a liking task were applied on French and Italian elderly to study perception and preference of familiar (peas) and unfamiliar (sweetcorn) vegetables. Similarities between the categorization maps, the preference maps and the sensory maps from vegetable samples were assessed through the RV coefficient and map visual inspection. The free sorting task was found to be a suitable method to use with healthy older adults, that allowed the detection of differences in the categorization of stimuli even among the more aged representatives of the elderly population. Familiarity with the product was the main factor affecting the categorization maps. Categorization maps from the familiar vegetable were found to be reliable to obtain information on sensory and hedonic dimensions, while maps obtained from the unfamiliar vegetable mainly depicted sensory variability.