Snacking is characteristic for adolescent’s diet and
way of life. Generally parents determine food availability at home. Adolescents
eat in-between meals often somewhere else than home for example in school
cafeteria. These are the times when adolescents own quality expectations have a
larger role in decision making. Parents usually pay for in-between meals but
the adolescents buy them. As adolescents base their food choice primarily on sensory
quality, it is worth studying do these consumer groups also differ in
perceiving food products.

The aim of this study was to investigate if
adolescents and adults differ in liking of snack products. Snack bar was used
as an example product. 45 adolescents tested the snack bar at the school
cafeteria. Test was conducted at the school cafeteria where adolescents daily
make choices on snack products. Product was evaluated blind. Liking of
appearance, flavour and overall liking were evaluated. Test for adults was
conducted in a sensory laboratory (ISO 8589) at the University of Turku
Functional Foods Forum where 82 adult consumers evaluated the same product
using Compusense Cloud.