The use of augmented reality on sensory evaluation of liked or disliked products : A Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Food Innovation at Lincoln University

Abstract

Augmented reality (AR) applications in the food industry, are considered innovative to enrich the interactions between consumers and food products, especially for benefitting online retailers. Otherwise, the boosting market of dairy-free foods, alternative proteins and upcycled foods are driven by consumers’ pursuit of healthy and functional foods, vegetarian diets and environment sustainability. This study combined and applied these recent food trends in the sensory evaluation of food products. AR HoloLens two headsets were used to set up two product’s AR environments: (1) AR coconut view (ARC), and (2) AR dairy view (ARD). Three products were testes: (1) a dairy-free yoghurt based on a vanilla bean-flavoured coconut milk-based yoghurt (coconut yoghurt), and (2) a dairy yoghurt based on a vanilla bean-flavoured cow milk-based yoghurt (dairy-yoghurt), and (3) a transitional yoghurt named “mixed yoghurt” (made by half coconut yoghurt and half dairy yoghurt) to avoid appearance bias. The study aimed to investigate the hedonic ratings, just-about-right (JAR) ratings, check-all-that-apply (CATA) attribute terms, emotional response, purchase intent and consumer shopping behaviours of these three yoghurts (coconut yoghurt, dairy yoghurt and mixed yoghurt) under ARC, ARD and sensory booths (SB) using a 3 x 3 factorial design. The results showed that the liking scores of dairy yoghurt and mixed yoghurt were generally higher than coconut yoghurt regardless of the environments. The interaction effect of yoghurts and environments were statistically significant in terms of appearance, taste/flavour, sweetness, mouthfeel, aftertaste and overall liking. Moreover, AR contextual environments potentially improve the liking scores of the evaluated yoghurt samples. JAR and penalty analysis revealed that most of the consumers rated the sourness, sweetness, and mouthfeel of the dairy and mixed yoghurt to be just-about-right. At the same time, consumers penalized the coconut yoghurt for being “too much” in sourness, “too little” in sweetness, and “too thin” in mouthfeel. For the CATA analysis, attribute terms positively associated with overall liking (such as “sweet”, “smooth” and “creamy”), which were selected for coconut yoghurt and dairy yoghurt; whereas, the attribute terms against overall liking (such as “firm”, “heavy” and “astringent”) were selected for coconut yoghurt. No effects of environments on emotional responses were found among yoghurt types. Regarding purchase intent and the investigations of yoghurt consumption behaviour, the purchase intent of dairy yoghurt and mixed yoghurt were higher than coconut yoghurt, and “taste” and “health” were considered to be the most critical reasons for yoghurt consumption. The use of augmented reality in the sensory evaluation could affect the discrimination of food products. For instance, the significant difference of liking scores between mixed yoghurt and coconut yoghurt was found under SB, but the difference was not significant under ARC. Whether ecological validity could be improved by augmented reality in sensory studies will be investigated in further study.