The Impact of Appearance of Chicken Meat on Consumer Preference

As pointed out by Dr. Barbut in a recent paper, appearance of food products play an important role in the decision of the consumer to purchase or not to purchase. It has been suggested that warm colors of certain foods tend to stimulate the digestive tract's nervous system while soft, cool colors may depress it.

In a recent study, Dr. Barbut examined consumer preference to three different cuts of chicken meat when they were displayed under incandescent, fluorescent and metal halide lighting. For whole chicken and skinless thigh meat, incandescent was the preferred light source, while for skinless breast meat, fluorescent was preferred over metal halide but not over incandescent lighting. Most panelists indicated they would buy thigh meat presented under incandescent and metal halide lighting but not fluorescent.

For today's discriminating consumer, these types of studies demonstrate that quality alone is not enough to ensure consumer preference.

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