Development of a questionnaire to measure consumer wellness associated with foods: The WellSense Profile™

•The approach used to construct a wellness questionnaire for foods and ingredients is presented.•It measures 5 dimensions of wellness: emotional, intellectual, physical, social and spiritual.•The questionnaire was tested via internet surveys to test product names and CLT’s to test foods.•This questionnaire has the potential for commercial applications.

This paper presents the development of a questionnaire to measure consumer wellness associated with food. The paper describes the selection of the questionnaire items, the validation of the questionnaire content, and the stability of the results. This new questionnaire, consisting of 5 dimensions (emotional, intellectual, physical, social and spiritual), and a total of 45 items, measures expected or perceived wellness response to food names or consumed food. The questionnaire was tested using internet surveys (names of aromatics, peppermint and lavender), and central location tests (different recipes of meatloaf and vegetables). The construct of this questionnaire and data analyses provide not only an overall (calculated) wellness score, but also insights into the dimensions that drive the wellness response and specific foods or ingredient characteristics that drive the wellness response.