Understanding Consumer Preference for Functional Barley Tortillas Through Sensory, Demographic, and Behavioral Data

Abstract

Cereal Chem. 85(6):721-729Consumption of whole grains as part of a health-promoting diet is encouraged among Americans due to beneficial nutrients and phytochemicals. The main objectives of this study were to investigate the effect of whole barley flour particle size on consumer acceptance of whole grain and soluble fiber-enriched tortillas; to examine the effect of demographic and behavioral data on consumer acceptance; and to establish relationships between consumer acceptance and survey results to identify market opportunities among particular groups of consumers. Four experimental tortillas and two representative commercial brands were tested by 95 untrained panelists using a 9-point hedonic scale for appearance, color, flavor, texture, and overall acceptability. Demographic and behavioral data on age, gender, ethnicity, frequency of tortilla consumption, daily effort to include fiber in the diet, consumption of tortillas containing ≥1 g of dietary fiber/serving, consumption of low-fat tortillas, and tortilla brands and type used were collected. Potential market segments for these tortillas include older consumers (41+), women, Hispanics, and Asians, and frequent tortilla consumers. A response surface relating flavor and texture to overall acceptability produced almost equivalent results to the multivariate PLS results in terms of predicting overall acceptability, which facilitates analysis and interpretation.

Changes in chemical and physical properties of Latin American wheat flour based tortillas substituted with different levels of distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS)

“…The texture of tortillas plays a major role in consumer acceptability (Toma et al 2008). In this study, two different texture properties were evaluated, extensibility and firmness (Table 3).…”

“…Color is an important factor in consumer perception and together with aroma and texture can have a major role in bread acceptability (Toma et al 2008). Color depends on the physiochemical characteristics of the dough and also processing of the bread.…”

“…Tortillas provide an inexpensive source of energy for all socioeconomic levels in Mexico, with an annual consumption rate of nearly 120 kg per capita or approximately 328 g tortilla/ person/day (Figuerou et al 2003). During the past several years, consumption of tortillas has increased in other countries; tortillas are reported to be the second most popular type of bread in the U.S., with Americans consuming approximately 85 billion tortillas in 2000 (Toma et al 2008). It has been predicted that this amount will increase by up to 10 % in the next few years (Steinberg 2005).…”

“…For example, the effect of different wheat classes on the textural properties of tortilla was investigated by Wang and Flores (1999). Toma et al (2008) incorporated whole barley flour into tortilla and investigated the effect of flour particle size on acceptability of whole grain, soluble fiber-enriched tortillas by consumers. Saldivar et al (2004) substituted triticale flour into wheat flour tortilla (hybrid of wheat and rye), and Figuerou et al (2003) fortified tortillas by adding vitamin and soy protein to the flour.…”

Sensory diversity of fonio landraces from West Africa

“…The sensory properties of several cereals have been widely described through quantitative descriptive analyses (Murray, 2001;Kebakile et al, 2008) or through the description of consumer preferences using hedonic tests (Linhardt et al, 2008;Toma et al, 2008). However, to our knowledge, no studies have been published on sensory analysis of cooked fonio grain comparable to those reporting on cooked rice grain (Meullenet et al, 2000;Champagne et al, 2004;Tomlins et al, 2005).…”