Abstract Consumers’ food choices are affected by various factors whose study is of interest for food industry. This paper aims to investigate the influence of familiarity on the expectation and liking of Maroilles cheese among consumers familiar and unfamiliar with the product in France. It specifically focuses on two elements of the familiarity: consumption frequency and knowledge and studies their interactions. A hedonic test on Maroilles cheeses was carried out with 305 consumers from Lille city (familiar with Maroilles cheese) and from Angers city (unfamiliar). The test included three conditions: blind (tasting without any information), expected (no tasting, presentation of the photo of the packaging) and informed conditions (tasting + presentation of the photo of the packaging). A questionnaire was also administrated to assess their socio-demographic information, theoretical knowledge and consumption habits related to Maroilles cheeses. Results show that, as expected, Lille consumers eat more Maroilles and show higher liking scores for this cheese than Angers consumers do. Lille consumers outperform Angers consumers on their knowledge score and an interaction between the levels of knowledge and exposure is observed: Lille consumers with the higher level of knowledge have higher expectations of Maroilles cheese than Lille consumers with the lower level of knowledge. This effect is not observed with Angers consumers. Moreover, consumers familiar with Maroilles based their hedonic judgment mainly on intrinsic cues (tasting) whereas consumers unfamiliar with Maroilles are more influenced by extrinsic cues (packaging). Familiarity affects how consumers use available information to form product quality judgement.

中文翻译：

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消费者对奶酪的期望和喜好：地区差异导致的熟悉度效应能否在一个国家内凸显？

摘要 消费者的食品选择受到多种因素的影响，食品工业对其研究很感兴趣。本文旨在调查熟悉度对法国马洛伊尔奶酪消费者熟悉和不熟悉产品的期望和喜好的影响。它特别关注熟悉度的两个要素：消费频率和知识，并研究它们的相互作用。对来自里尔市（熟悉 Maroilles 奶酪）和来自昂热市（不熟悉）的 305 名消费者进行了 Maroilles 奶酪的快感测试。测试包括三个条件：盲目（没有任何信息的品尝）、预期（没有品尝、展示包装照片）和知情条件（品尝+展示包装照片）。还进行了问卷调查以评估他们与 Maroilles 奶酪相关的社会人口统计信息、理论知识和消费习惯。结果表明，正如预期的那样，里尔的消费者比昂热的消费者吃更多的 Maroilles，并且对这种奶酪的喜好分数更高。里尔消费者在知识得分上的表现优于昂热消费者，并且观察到知识水平与暴露程度之间的相互作用：知识水平较高的里尔消费者比知识水平较低的里尔消费者对 Maroilles 奶酪的期望更高。昂热消费者没有观察到这种效果。此外，熟悉 Maroilles 的消费者的享乐判断主要基于内在线索（品尝），而不熟悉 Maroilles 的消费者更受外在线索（包装）的影响。