EFFECTS OF HEALTH-RELATED CLAIMS ON THE DIFFERENTIAL THRESHOLD OF CONSUMERS' SWEETNESS SENSATION

Health concerns play an important role in people's consumption of food products and judgments of food taste. Previous studies on the effects of food labeling suggest that consumers' sensory evaluations are influenced by health concerns. The current study examined whether health-related claims would affect sweetness sensations. Differential thresholds for sensitivity to sweetness were measured separately under three conditions: without health-related claims, with a label suggesting a health advantage and with a health warning label. Results indicated that thresholds under both health-related labeling conditions were lower than those under the condition with no health-related claim, suggesting that consumers exposed to health-related labels were more sensitive to sweetness. The threshold for the health advantage label lay between those for no health-related claims (which yielded the highest threshold) and the health warning (which yielded the lowest). These findings are discussed in terms of health concerns, and suggestions for future research are explored. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS The insights gained in this study give researchers and marketers information about how to measure consumers' differential threshold of sweetness threshold with the psychophysical method. It provides information about the effects of health-related claims on the differential threshold of sweetness sensation. The findings and explanations are beneficial for product development researchers and marketer to predict consumers' change of differential threshold when employing health-related claims to influence sweetness sensation of food products with varying levels of sweetener changes.