“A little information excites us.” Consumer sensory experience of Vermont artisan cheese as active practice

• Sensory perception is a social, active, and reflexive practice.
• Social theory explains how consumers make sense of extrinsic qualities of food.
• Artisan cheese consumer acceptance stems from intrinsic and extrinsic qualities.
• Vermont artisan cheese is liked because it is embedded in social relations.
• Future research should account for the social nature of sensory experience.

This research is concerned with explaining consumer preference for Vermont artisan cheese and the relationship between that preference and sensory experience. Artisan cheesemaking is increasingly an important part of Vermont's dairy sector, and this tracks a growing trend of artisan agricultural practice in the United States. In popular discourse and academic research into products like artisan cheese, consumers explain their preferences in terms of intrinsic sensory and extrinsic – supposedly nonsensory – food qualities. In laboratory sensory studies, however, the relationship between preference, intrinsic, and extrinsic qualities changes or disappears. In contrast, this study explains this relationship by adopting a social theory of sensory perception as a practice in everyday life. This theory is applied to a series of focus group interviews with Vermont artisan cheese consumers about their everyday perceptions. Based on the data, a conceptual framework for the sensory perception of Vermont artisan cheese is suggested: consumers combine information about producer practice, social context, and the materiality of the product through an active, learned practice of sensory perception. Particular qualities that drive consumer sensory experience and preference are identified from the interview data. Many of these qualities are difficult to categorize as entirely intrinsic or extrinsic, highlighting the need for developing new approaches of sensory evaluation in order to fully capture everyday consumer sensory perception. Thus, this research demonstrates that social theory provides new and valuable insights into consumer sensory preference for Vermont artisan cheese.