CONSUMER EXPECTATIONS AND PERCEPTION OF CHOCOLATE MILK DESSERTS ENRICHED WITH ANTIOXIDANTS

A study was carried out to identify consumers' previous expectations of chocolate milk desserts enriched with antioxidants and to determine if these expectations affected product perception. Seventy-five consumers participated in the study and were asked to complete a word association task before the evaluation. Then, consumers tried six milk desserts with different polyphenolic concentration, scored their overall liking and willingness to purchase and provided up to four words to describe each of the samples. Cluster analysis performed on consumer-elicited terms in the word association task allowed the identification of three consumer segments with different expectations and motivations toward chocolate milk desserts enriched with antioxidants. These groups also differed in their evaluation of the desserts when tasting them, showing different overall liking, willingness to purchase and sensory description of the samples. This suggests that consumers' prior expectations and motivations significantly affected their response when tasting the desserts. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS Word association was used to get an insight on consumer expectations of chocolate milk desserts enriched with antioxidants, proving to be a useful methodology. This approach could be a simple technique to understand consumer expectations before tasting a product, and to study how these expectations affect their response after tasting the product, particularly interesting when novel products are considered. Consumer segmentation based on their previous thoughts about a product could help to assure that a product meets consumer expectations appropriately, leading to a higher satisfaction.