Investigating consumer food choice behavior: an application combining sensory evaluation and experimental auctions

Abstract

We investigate what piece of information collected utilizing sensory evaluation tools exhibits better predictive capacity on the willingness to pay, is it information from preferences for a sensory quality attribute using hedonic scales or information on perceived intensity for the same attribute using intensity scales? We also estimated if extrinsic or intrinsic quality exerts a similar impact on consumer’s willingness to pay. We conducted a sensory evaluation along with experimental auctions using three different apple varieties with college students in Metropolitan Lima, Peru. Findings from this study show that information collected on preference liking for apple quality attributes has a better explanatory capability for willingness to pay, compared to information on consumers’ perceived intensity for the same attribute. The explanatory capability was measured using measures of goodness-of-fit. We also prove that willingness to pay was driven both by the apple variety induced intrinsic quality attributes and the extrinsic cues of the variety. Results add to the existing body of literature aiming to improve the understanding of consumer food choice behavior.