“Effect of Labeling on Consumer Perception of Commercial and Laboratory-Produced Vanilla Ice Creams

Ice cream, produced in millions of gallons, has been a favorite comfort food to many people since its development centuries ago. Vanilla ice cream has long been a staple in the ice cream industry with its production and consumption being the highest when compared to other flavors. Since many consumers want more “natural” foods, the objective of this study was to study the effect of labeling the type of vanilla flavoring on consumer perception of commercial ice cream and laboratory-produced vanilla ice cream. Four commercial vanilla ice creams, one containing natural vanilla, one with artificial, and two containing both, were evaluated by several sensory panels. Nine-point hedonic scales were used to evaluate overall liking, appearance, color, flavor, vanilla flavor, sweetness and 9-point intensity scales were used to evaluate the strength of vanilla flavor and the strength of sweetness of the commercial ice creams. When the samples were not labeled with the type of vanilla flavoring, ANOVA data showed that the naturally flavored ice cream was not liked as well as the ice cream with mixed flavorings overall and for vanilla flavor. When the samples were labeled with the type of vanilla flavoring, the artificially flavored ice cream was not liked as well as the mixed flavored ice creams. The naturally flavored ice cream was liked as well as one of the mixed flavored ice creams overall and for flavor and vanilla flavor. Another experiment was conducted with an incomplete block design (n=150) with the same four ice creams being labeled (correctly or incorrectly) for twelve combinations. No iv overall, flavor, vanilla flavor, or sweetness differences in hedonic scores existed among the products, yet differences did exist between the ice creams with particular labels no matter which product was used. Products labeled “natural” were liked more (p\u3c0.05) overall and for vanilla flavor than the products with other labels. Further experimentation involved using a standard ice cream base mix to adjust for the effect of other ingredients on flavor. A ranking test was used to determine which amount of artificial or natural vanilla flavoring (6,8,10,or 12 mL) was liked best for strength of vanilla flavor. Further experiments using the base mix used ice cream made with 10 mL of 2-fold pure vanilla extract, 10 mL of artificial vanilla flavoring, or 5mL of natural and 5 mL of artificial flavoring. In general, the 10 mL of vanilla flavoring matched the “ideal” strength of vanilla flavoring. Hedonic and intensity testing similar to that used for the commercial ice cream was used for the laboratory-produced ice cream. For an experiment where the ice cream was not labeled with the type of vanilla flavoring, ANOVA showed the naturally flavored ice cream was not liked as well as the other two samples overall, for color, flavor, vanilla flavor, or sweetness. When the samples were labeled with the type of vanilla flavoring used, the artificially flavored ice cream was not liked as well as the other two samples overall and for flavor and vanilla flavor. Another experiment was conduced using an incomplete block design with each ice cream being labeled (correctly or incorrectly) with the type of vanilla flavoring for a total of 9 combinations. The naturally flavored ice cream was not v liked as well overall and for flavor and vanilla flavor as the other two samples. No differences were found among the samples when they were evaluated based on the label assigned to the ice cream. For both the commercial and the laboratory-produced ice creams, labeling was shown to have an effect on consumer perception. Psychological effects on consumer perceptions need further consideration and research