Consumer perception towards familiar and innovative foods: the case of a Brazilian product

The purpose of this paper is to assess consumers' perception of a typical Brazilian food in its familiar and innovative versions through a survey combined with textual analysis.

The study collected consumers’ data (N = 476) via survey and conducted two textual analysis – similitude and descending hierarchical classification (DHC) – using the Iramuteq software. In order to evaluate the consumers’ perception, traditional cheese breads (familiar) and cheese breads with carrots (innovative) were used. The consumers are from Central-West Brazil and had diverse socioeconomic status.

Similitude analysis showed that the familiar product presented mostly neutral or positive characteristics. The DHC analysis provided three relevant classes for the traditional cheese bread (familiar) product, considering the consumers’ perceptions and socioeconomic status. For the innovative product, the similitude analysis showed negative associations with the food (food neophobia), but there are also positive characteristics to be explored (food neophilia). Neophobia was attributed to hedonic aspects, e.g. doubts about the taste approval. Neophilia was related to normative aspects, e.g. the product's health benefits.

The results are exploratory and, therefore, cannot be generalized, but can arise insights to different food products. It was observed that the chosen method can be useful to access the consumer's perception and could be replicated in other cultures and regarding different products.

Food neophobia can be avoided by highlighting hedonic aspects and food neophilia can be activate via normative attributes, so the launch of an innovative food should be accompanied by consumer-oriented marketing strategies.

The present study brings relevant insights regarding food neophobia and neophilia and uses a combination of survey with textual analysis.