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Functional and diet claims: how consumers were affected by them?

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Label claims leads to consumer driven toward food purchase intention and acceptance. The aim of this study is provide information about label influences using functional and diet statements. One hundred and twelve consumers expressed their perception about diet chocolate ice cream (using neosucralose as sweetener), under two conditions: blind and informed (evaluating the samples together with the label claim observations). A 9-cm unstructured hedonic scale and 5-point purchase intention questionnaire were used. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed on the consumers’ overall liking, and mean ratings were calculated using Tukey´s test (p=5%). A Principal component analysis was done. Considering the overall liking, consumers differed significantly the samples (P≤0.05) and the claims containing Fiber term were more accepted. Furthermore, the purchase intention was higher under the informed condition, mainly affected by the claim with “Fiber” word, and so by the term “Zero”. These findings show that the changes in the functional property claim influenced the consumers’ acceptance. In general, ice cream consumers preferred the sample with healthy information.