Effect of social interaction and meal accompaniments on acceptability of sourdough prepared croissants: An exploratory study

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of two contextual variables on consumer acceptance of sourdough-prepared croissants: social interaction among participants during the test and accompanying beverages. Three groups of consumers evaluated five samples in three different conditions: in individual testing booths (control group) and in the meeting room with and without an accompanying beverage. Croissants were also submitted to descriptive analysis (DA), and the effect of the sourdough addition on the sensory properties of croissants was evaluated. The results of DA demonstrated that sensory differences among croissants were mainly due to the leavening procedure used in their production process. Generally, those sensory differences did not significantly affect hedonic judgments, since all the samples were highly acceptable by consumers. Social interaction among subjects negatively affected all the liking scores when compared to the control group, whereas no effect of adding a beverage was observed. The liking of croissants for the three experimental groups corresponded to different sensory profiles, indicating that particular context in which the croissants were evaluated affected the relative contribution of the sensory characteristics to the consumer liking of the croissants.