Using a vending machine to evaluate how people respond to new foods

Scientists don’t yet fully understand how people learn to like new foods and flavours. Predicting whether someone will accept a new food or flavour is difficult because we know so little about what drives this process. Exploring how these preferences develop is also difficult because of how much it costs to monitor and track changes in people’s acceptance of new foods over time.

This inability to predict whether people will accept new types of food makes it difficult for the food industry to innovate. Not being able to predict trends in what consumers will like over time makes delivering new foods risky as there is no certainty that consumers will accept them.

Project aims

We will use the research vending machine developed by Professor Jeff Brunstrom and his team to explore a new baked product being trialled by our industry partner Modern Baker.

The vending machine will allow us to offer the product we’re testing to many people over several months. It is likely that the product we’re testing will be a muffin or biscuit with added fibre. When the muffin or biscuit is vended, our participants will receive a mobile phone notification, which they will then use to evaluate it.

Recent research indicates that certain fibres can impact satiety (how full we feel between meals). However, the impact of the fibre blend used by Modern Baker remains unclear. To start addressing this question, we will monitor the expected satiety and satiation (feeling full while eating) of the foods we are testing.

What we hope to achieve

This project will provide our industry partner with an understanding of how consumers adapt to one of their products over time. It will also trial how our vending machine approach works and whether it could have broader application across the food industry.

Building on this, we plan to team up with other food-industry partners and researchers to develop a larger, across-hub, project.