A healthy and balanced diet can reduce health problems, such as
overweight and metabolic syndrome. In general, people have a
considerably good knowledge of what constitutes a healthy diet and how
they could achieve it with their food choices. Besides, people argue
that health is among their top five food choice motives. Nevertheless,
the prevalence of overweight is increasing and other food choice
motives, such as taste, seem to conflict with the health. Liking for
food does not necessarily determine acceptance alone, thus several
non-sensory factors, such as brand, country of origin and nutrition
claim, can also influence. Moreover, consumers are individuals in how
they prioritize sensory and nonsensory factors of foods, but e.g.
increasing age, female gender and health concern have been connected to a
more health-oriented dietary behaviour. To sum up, identifying
different factors that can increase the liking and consumption of
healthy food is essential in order to develop more attractive healthful
food products. Adding vitamins, minerals, fibre or other ingredients to a
food product can be used to enrich the nutritional quality of the
products. However, this may be difficult in practice as regards the
sensory quality and pleasantness of the foods. Generally, consumers are
not willing to compromise on taste in food. On the other hand, consumers
are very heterogeneous in their likings, and their personal values and
attitudes may interact with preferences for specific sensory
characteristics. The aims of this study were to investigate the effects
of intrinsic product characteristics on sensory properties and hedonic
responses; to determine the impact of few non-sensory factors; and to
examine the interaction between sensory and non-sensory factors with
consumers’ demographics, values and attitudes in liking of healthy model
foods. The results showed that product composition influenced sensory
quality and had an effect on hedonic responses. Adding flaxseed to
bakery products showed a significant improvement in the nutritional
quality without negative effects on sensory properties. On the other
hand, the fortification of wellness beverages with vitamins and minerals
may impart off-flavours. In general, sweetness of yoghurts, freshness
of wellness beverages and low intensity of rye bread flavour appealed to
consumers. Information about the domestic origin of yoghurts and
claiming a specific function for wellness beverages enhanced liking.
However, consumers who were more concerned about their health and
considered natural content as an important food choice motive, rated
sourer and less sweet yoghurts and wellness beverages as more pleasant.
In addition, interest in health increased the consumption of rye breads
and other whole grain breads among adolescents. The results showed that
the optimal product quality in terms of intrinsic and extrinsic factors
differs between individual consumers, and personal values and food
choice motives can be connected to preferences for specific sensory
characteristics of foods. This indicates that each food product needs to
be considered in relation to its specific market niche, and to which
segment of consumer will respond most positively to its characteristics.