Food Consumption and Emotions at a Salad Lunch Buffet in a Multisensory Environment

Abstract

The food experience is multisensory and multisensory external stimuli may affect food choice and emotions. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of a multisensory eating environment on food choice, intake and the emotional states of the subjects in a salad lunch buffet setting. A total of 30 female subjects consumed a salad lunch twice in the multisensory laboratory. The two test conditions (control and multisensory condition with environmental stimuli) were randomized and the visits were scheduled one week apart. Subjects selected and ate a meal from a salad buffet including 14 food items and the intake of each item was weighed. They answered an online questionnaire about the meal and their emotional states (20 different emotion terms) after the lunch. There was no significant difference in the food consumption between the control and multisensory conditions. The subjects were very satisfied with their lunch for both study visits but the pleasantness of the eating environment was rated higher under the multisensory condition. In emotional terms, the subjects selected the term “happy” significantly more frequently under the multisensory condition compared with the control. In conclusion, the multisensory eating environment in this study was not related to food intake but may be associated with positive emotions. The effect of the eating environment on food choice and experience deserves further study with a larger study population in a real lunch restaurant setting.

Nature Ambience in a Lunch Restaurant Has the Potential to Evoke Positive Emotions, Reduce Stress, and Support Healthy Food Choices and Sustainable Behavior: A Field Experiment among Finnish Customers

“…However, no differences were observed between ‘nature ambience’ and ‘customary ambience’. Although the effects of eating environment or context on consumers’ emotional responses have been demonstrated in many previous studies carried out in laboratory conditions [ 25 , 34 , 35 ], the differences between the ambiences in our field study were small despite the drastic differences observed in the pre-test. This might be because in a lunch restaurant setting, there are a multitude of other stimuli such as the lunch companion, restaurant layout, and rush that influence the situation simultaneously and might hide the experimental ambience effect.…”

“…Although the scientific evidence on the influence of the food environment on stress and food behaviors in a real food consumption environment is sparse [ 8 ], it is proposed that behaviors could be influenced by illumination, colors, odors and temperature modifications [ 24 ]. From this perspective, recent studies done in restaurant dining contexts have shown that multisensory lunch conditions including nature themed images, sounds and odors indeed enhance positive emotions among the study participants, but no effect on food choices was found [ 25 ], and that auditory stimuli that was perceived as “healthy music” increased healthy food choices [ 26 ]. However, the above-mentioned studies were carried out in laboratory settings instead of field conditions.…”

Generating New Snack Food Texture Ideas Using Sensory and Consumer Research Tools: A Case Study of the Japanese and South Korean Snack Food Markets

“…The use of techniques such as interviews, focus groups, behavioral observation, ethnography and other such qualitative measures plays an important part of the process for determining and documenting consumer needs [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 ]. In addition, quantitative measures of consumer understanding, attitudes, behaviors, and emotions as they relate to products provide additional information that may be critical to discerning potential product requirements [ 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 ].…”

Sensory and Consumer Research Has a Role in Supporting Sustainability of the Food System

“…based on paper-and-pencil or online questionnaires [2,3,10,[12][13][14]17], and two (~10%) used qualitative focus group interview approaches [11,19]. Furthermore, of the nine studies that included sensory analysis, two studies exclusively applied analytical sensory evaluation techniques using trained or semi-trained sensory panels [6,18], six studies employed hedonic tests to assess acceptability using non-trained panels (consumers) [5,[7][8][9]15,16], while only one study used both [20]. Methods used in the studies demonstrate that the usual techniques of sensory and consumer research are also applicable to research on sustainable foods.…”

“…Hoppu et al [15] applied a sophisticated multisensory experimental setting for a lunch buffet to study effects of the eating environment to amount of food intake and emotions evoked. Compared to the control condition, the multisensory eating environment was rated as more pleasant and evoked more positive emotions, while no difference in food intake was found between the conditions.…”