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Consumer taste tests and milk preference in low-income, urban supermarkets

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Abstract

Objective: To explore shoppers' responses to the taste of different types of cow's milk in a blind taste test and to examine their willingness to purchase lower-fat milk as part of an in-store marketing intervention. Design: Participants were recruited on-site in the supermarket to participate in a blind taste test of three varieties of cow's milk and asked to guess what type they sampled. Setting: The taste testing was conducted as part of the Healthy Retail Solution (HRS) intervention that took place in four large supermarkets in Philadelphia, PA, USA over the course of six months. Subjects: Adults (n 444) at participating Philadelphia supermarkets. Results: The majority of participants at all stores reported typically purchasing higher-fat milk. Forty per cent of participants reported buying whole milk, 38 % purchased milk with 2 % fat. Very few participants correctly identified all three milk samples during the taste test (6·9 %) and a majority of participants were unable to identify the type of milk they self-reported typically purchased. Conclusions: Most consumers could not accurately distinguish between various types of milk. Taste testing is a promising strategy to introduce lower-fat milks to consumers who have not tried them before. Campaigns to purchase skimmed, 1 % or 2 % milk may result in significant energy reduction over time and can serve as a simple way to combat overweight and obesity.

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... With a focus on the barriers and facilitators, softer dairy product consumption was associated with a higher liking for or a higher appreciation of the taste of dairy products. Liking and taste are strong predictors of food intake in older adults, as discussed above, and effects for dairy products specifically have previously been elucidated [25,26,[57][58][59]. An appreciation for taste may be particularly prominent for this product group, furthermore, given the variety of tastes within the dairy category, from salty, smoked, and blue cheeses to sweet, flavoured yoghurts and desserts, and the variety in taste intensity. ...
... Strategies to increase liking that focus on flavour enhancement or addition may be less suitable for softer dairy products, while strategies that focus more on experiencing and embracing the variety of tastes that naturally exist may be more advisable. Previous work demonstrates the value of tastings for increasing product acceptance [59], and larger food repertoires have been associated with improved health. The increased consumption in our data, furthermore, by those with less reliance on habit, would suggest an openness to differing tastes and flavours in softer dairy consumption. ...
... The associations with perceived ability most likely reflect the ease with which softer dairy products can be consumed, not only due to softer textures but also due to the lack of cooking required, the individual packaging, and the light-weight nature of many of these foods [25,59]. These findings suggest that focusing on increasing the convenience of consuming these foods, again in terms of ease and effort, may be of value. ...
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Older adults may gain health benefits from the consumption of animal-based protein-rich foods, but environmental pressures suggest advocating some meat and dairy foods over others, and understanding the barriers and facilitators for consuming these different foods would be of value. Existing data on the barriers to and facilitators of the consumption of meat and dairy products were re-analysed for differing effects for white, red, and processed meat consumption and for yoghurt, soft cheese, and hard cheese consumption. White meat consumption was associated with fewer concerns over spoilage and waste and stronger perceptions that meat is convenient (smallest Beta = 0.135, p = 0.01), while red and processed meat consumption were positively associated with liking /taste, appearance, and convenience (smallest Beta = 0.117, p = 0.03). Yoghurt and soft cheese consumption were positively associated with liking/taste and medical concerns, and fewer concerns over ability and habit (smallest Beta = −0.111, p = 0.05), while hard cheese consumption was only associated with liking/taste (Beta = 0.153, p = 0.01). Taken together, these data suggest that enhancing or promoting the enjoyment, taste, visual appeal, and ease-of-consumption of the more sustainable meat and dairy options may be of value in encouraging the consumption of these foods in older adults.
... Promotion was the most commonly utilized marketing P and was the focus of 23 studies. Overall, 1 study had mixed effects (positive + negative) [16], 5 had mixed effects (positive + null) [17][18][19][20][21], 8 had mixed effects (positive + null + negative) [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29], 1 had negative effects [30], 2 had null effects [31,32], and 13 had positive effects [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45], (see Table 2). ...
... Twenty-three studies used a promotion strategy [17,[19][20][21][22][24][25][26][27][28][30][31][32]34,[36][37][38][39][41][42][43][44][45] as the sole intervention approach. Ten promotion interventions had positive effects [34,[36][37][38][39][41][42][43][44][45], four reported mixed effects (positive + null) [17,[19][20][21], six reported mixed effects (positive + null + negative) [22,[24][25][26][27][28], two reported null effects [31,32], and one reported negative effects [30]. ...
... Twenty-three studies used a promotion strategy [17,[19][20][21][22][24][25][26][27][28][30][31][32]34,[36][37][38][39][41][42][43][44][45] as the sole intervention approach. Ten promotion interventions had positive effects [34,[36][37][38][39][41][42][43][44][45], four reported mixed effects (positive + null) [17,[19][20][21], six reported mixed effects (positive + null + negative) [22,[24][25][26][27][28], two reported null effects [31,32], and one reported negative effects [30]. ...
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This review examines current research on manipulations of U.S. food retail environments to promote healthier food purchasing and consumption. Studies reviewed use marketing strategies defined as the 4Ps (product, price, placement, promotion) to examine results based on single-and multi-component interventions by study design, outcome, and which of the "Ps" was targeted. Nine electronic databases were searched for publications from 2010 to 2019, followed by forward and backward searches. Studies were included if the intervention was initiated by a researcher or retailer, conducted in-store, and manipulated the retail environment. Of the unique 596 studies initially identified, 64 studies met inclusion criteria. Findings show that 56 studies had at least one positive effect related to healthier food consumption or purchasing. Thirty studies used single-component interventions, while 34 were multi-component. Promotion was the most commonly utilized marketing strategy, while manipulating promotion, placement, and product was the most common for multi-component interventions. Only 14 of the 64 studies were experimental and included objective outcome data. Future research should emphasize rigorous designs and objective outcomes. Research is also needed to understand individual and additive effects of multi-component interventions on sales outcomes, substitution effects of healthy food purchases, and sustainability of impacts.
... Healthiness or perceived healthiness has also previously been found to be particularly important for older individuals where health may be more fragile and more of a concern [60,71,72]. Others also report the higher consumption of other animal-based protein-rich foods investigated in this study, by those who consider them to be healthy [73][74][75][76][77]. ...
... Effects due to liking/tastiness are again unsurprising, and have previously been demonstrated in association with dairy consumption [74,76,77]. ...
... Some reasons provided for consumption by other researchers were also not found to be important in our sample. Healthiness, for example, has previously been identified as important for fish [82], egg [73] and dairy [74][75][76][77] consumption, as well as for meat consumption. Medical factors have previously been found to be important for dairy consumption [74,76,77]. ...
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Protein intakes in the older population can be lower than recommended for good health, and while reasons for low protein intakes can be provided, little work has attempted to investigate these reasons in relation to actual intakes, and so identify those of likely greatest impact when designing interventions. Questionnaires assessing: usual consumption of meat, fish, eggs and dairy products; agreement/disagreement with reasons for the consumption/non-consumption of these foods; and several demographic and lifestyle characteristics; were sent to 1000 UK community-dwelling adults aged 65 years and over. In total, 351 returned questionnaires, representative of the UK older population for gender and age, were suitable for analysis. Different factors were important for consumption of the four food groups, but similarities were also found. These similarities likely reflect issues of particular concern to both the consumption of animal-based protein-rich foods and the consumption of these foods by older adults. Taken together, these findings suggest intakes to be explained by, and thus that strategies for increasing consumption should focus on: increasing liking/tastiness; improving convenience and the effort required for food preparation and consumption; minimizing spoilage and wastage; and improving perceptions of affordability or value for money; freshness; and the healthiness of protein-rich foods.
... Two studies evaluated interventions that were solely composed of food tasting and demonstrations (Table 2) [47,48]. Of these, one study was experimental [47] and one was pre-experimental [48]. ...
... Two studies evaluated interventions that were solely composed of food tasting and demonstrations (Table 2) [47,48]. Of these, one study was experimental [47] and one was pre-experimental [48]. Both studies reported positive effects on healthy food purchasing or consumption. ...
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This review identifies the most promising intervention strategies for promoting the purchase and consumption of healthier items within U.S. grocery retail settings, with a particular focus on those strategies that may be most effective when implemented within SNAP-authorized retail settings. Searches of nine electronic databases, as well as forward and backward searches, yielded 1942 studies. After being screened, 73 peer-reviewed academic articles were identified for inclusion. Of these, 33 analyzed single-component interventions, while 40 assessed multi-component interventions. The following unique intervention types were considered as evaluated in these studies for their ability to increase healthy item purchasing and consumption: (1) nutrition scoring, (2) nutritional messaging, (3) non-nutritional messaging, (4) endcaps and secondary placement, (5) point-of-sale interventions, (6) increased stocking, (7) food tasting and demonstrations, (8) nutrition education, and (9) placement on shelf interventions. Nutritional scoring and nutritional messaging emerged as the most rigorously tested and effective intervention strategies. Other strategies warrant more research attention. Simple intervention strategies, as opposed to complex ones, yield the most successful results and minimize shopper burden. Therefore, these strategies should be reviewed for policy implementation within SNAP-authorized grocery retailers.
... While our research did not focus on the rationale for repeat purchasing from the perspective of the buyer, prior research may provide some insight. One study by Weiss et al. (2015) documented substantial differences in perceptions of the taste of full-fat and whole milk as compared to actual preferences during blind taste tests. In this study, consumers were asked to taste blind-samples of skim, 1%, and 2% milk and determine the type of milk. ...
... In this study, consumers were asked to taste blind-samples of skim, 1%, and 2% milk and determine the type of milk. Results showed that 81% of whole milk buyers incorrectly identified low-fat milk as whole milk, and 70% of whole milk drinkers and 65% of 2% milk drinkers considered switching to low-fat milk after tasting the product (Weiss et al., 2015). This may explain the repeat low-fat milk purchasing, reinforcing the notion that once consumers taste low-fat milk, it is found to be an acceptable alternative to whole milk. ...
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... The data from the 3 locations were collected from December 9 to 19, 2019, on December 3, 2019, and on December 21, 2019. The milk samples were served in 50-mL transparent plastic glasses coded by randomly selected 3-digit numbers during the blind tasting (Tuorila, 1987;Colonna et al., 2011;Weiss et al., 2015). ...
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... Signage was rotated monthly (e.g., new colors/different target products) to increase the chances that customers would notice them [8,39]. Milk taste tests [41] were conducted at intervention stores each month. An example of the intervention in beverage coolers is shown in Fig. 1. ...
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... Although statistically insignificant, participants who consumed whole, chocolate, or flavored milks believed in previous statements more strongly. Participants may view that these milks as more wholesome as observed in an intervention study conducted by Weiss and colleagues, whose participants indicated whole milk's higher healthfulness by referring to it as "vitamin D" milk [42]. ...
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