What are you telling me? Information and artificiality in food tasting processes

Among the strategies used by producers to enhance food value and consumer experiences are hedonic tasting processes. However, the evaluation, acceptance and credibility of these activities depend on whether they are perceived by consumers as forced/artificial. Providing consumers with more information could add to the perception of artificiality because they sense that they are being manipulated, which could have the opposite effect to that intended. To explore the factors that affect consumers’ perceptions of artificiality, a topic not explored in tasting experiences previously, an olive oil tasting experiment was conducted with 432 participants, in which information about the process, the product and the number of tasks they had to carry out were manipulated. The results indicated that, in general, providing more information tends to undermine the credibility of the tasting process and increases consumers’ perceptions of artificiality, an effect that becomes more pronounced among consumers with a strong interest in food but little interest in tasting processes. Finally, perceived artificiality is associated with poorer ratings of the product and the tasting experience.