Purpose

The purpose of this research is to investigate how biofortification claims impact consumer food taste inference and purchase intention. Based on the halo effect, the authors propose that food products with biofortification claims are inferred to taste better than regular foods. Due to this inference, biofortification claims subsequently improve purchase intention.

Design/methodology/approach

To examine these predictions, the authors conducted three between-subject design lab experiments featuring three staple foods: corn soup (β-carotene biofortification claim present or not), cooked rice (zinc biofortification claim present or not) and uncooked rice (zinc biofortification claim present or not). Participants were randomly assigned to one of two bioproduction claim conditions (present vs absent). Then, taste inference, purchase intention, consumer characteristics and confounding variables were measured.

Findings

In Experiment 1, the results showed that biofortification claims indeed appeared to evoke a heuristic halo effect, in which foods with biofortification claims were inferred to taste better than regular food. In Experiment 2, the results showed that participants had more intention to purchase foods with biofortification claims than regular food. The mediation effect of taste inference between biofortification claims and purchase intention was examined. In Experiment 3, the data further showed that this halo effect was more pronounced when consumers held a higher preference (vs lower preference) for the enriched nutritional element.

Originality/value

Biofortification claims have commonly been viewed solely as information about nutrition value for consumers. However, little is known about how biofortification claims impact hedonic consumer expectations. In this paper, the authors find that biofortification claims alone can impact consumer food taste inference, as nutritional information is not related to actual food taste. These findings extend the authors’ understanding of the psychological mechanism behind consumer attitudes towards biofortification.

中文翻译：

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生物强化声称对味觉推断和购买意向的光环效应

目的

这项研究的目的是调查生物强化声称如何影响消费者对食物口味的推断和购买意图。基于光环效应，作者建议推断出具有生物强化作用的食品比普通食品味道更好。由于这种推论，生物强化要求随后改善了购买意向。

设计/方法/方法

为了检验这些预测，作者进行了三个主题间设计实验室实验，这些实验针对三种主食：玉米汤（是否存在β-胡萝卜素生物强化声称），米饭（是否存在锌生物强化声称）和未煮饭（锌生物强化声称）存在与否）。参与者被随机分配到两个生物生产声明条件之一（存在或不存在）。然后，测量口味推断，购买意愿，消费者特征和混淆变量。

发现

在实验1中，结果表明，生物强化声称的确确实引起了启发式的光环效应，其中推断出具有生物强化声称的食品的口感比普通食品好。在实验2中，结果表明，与常规食品相比，参与者更有意购买具有生物强化要求的食品。研究了生物强化声称和购买意愿之间的味觉推断介导作用。在实验3中，数据进一步表明，当消费者对富含营养元素的偏好较高（相对于偏好较低）时，这种光环效应更加明显。

创意/价值

生物强化声称通常仅被视为有关消费者营养价值的信息。然而，关于生物强化声称如何影响享乐消费者的期望知之甚少。在本文中，作者发现，单独的生物强化声称可以影响消费者对食物口味的推断，因为营养信息与实际食物的口味无关。这些发现扩展了作者对消费者对生物强化的态度背后的心理机制的理解。