Consumers' sensory perception and emotional response towards animal and plant-based soups (familiar food items) with the addition of shio-koji (an unfamiliar ingredient)

Globally, consumers continue to seek out novel foods and ingredients from different cultures and regions. Shio-koji is a fermented seasoning that is usually made by fermenting rice with koji (Aspergillus oryzae). It has been proposed that shio-koji can be used as a flavour enhancer of foods. This study investigated consumers' (n = 96; generally unfamiliar with koji) liking (hedonic scales), emotional response (using the EsSense25 profile in check-all-that-apply format), as well as their sensory perception (generalised Labelled Magnitude Scales and free comment) of shio-koji additions to food items. Participants evaluated three different soups (chicken, vegetable and tomato), a familiar food product, with and without the addition of shio-koji. The shio-koji increased the consumers' liking of the vegetable soup and increased their perception of saltiness in the vegetable and tomato soups. The bitterness and sourness intensity of the chicken soup decreased with the addition of shio-koji, while the sweetness increased. However, the umami taste of all soups was not impacted. The soups with shio-koji were also associated with positive emotions. During the free comment task, shio-koji led to an increased mention of meaty attributes to describe the vegetable soup, but the inverse occurred when the participants evaluated the chicken soup. The results indicate that shio-koji impacted consumer perceptions of both animal- and plant-based soups. Future studies should continue to investigate the use of shio-koji to enhance the flavour of different food products. Consumers (n = 96) evaluated three different soups (chicken, vegetable, and tomato), a familiar food product, with and without the addition of shio-koji and described the different flavours they perceived. image