The role of emotions in food choice and liking

•EsSense® and PrEmo® differentiate between products from the same product category.•Food-evoked emotions are only partly related to liking and provide new information.•Food choice relates to mainly positive emotions.

Consumer liking ratings of food products often fail to predict market success. In addition to sensory tests, it is thought that food-evoked emotions provide a sensitive measure to describe products in a way that adds to information from liking. In this study two different tools were used to measure emotional responses to foods, PrEmo® and EsSense Profile® to differentiate between similar products from the same product category. Additionally, we investigated the relationship between food-evoked emotions, liking and choice behaviour. Participants (n = 123) tasted seven test products, scored liking, and evaluated each product with PrEmo® and EsSense Profile®. In a separate breakfast session we assessed the participants' actual food choice (their preferred breakfast drink out of seven). The results showed that PrEmo® and EsSense Profile® differentiated successfully between similar groups of breakfast drinks. We also found that liking is only partly associated with the emotion responses to the products. Thus, emotional profiles provide new information not captured by liking scores. Furthermore, food choice was related to mainly positive emotions, suggesting that food-evoked emotions can add to liking ratings in explaining choice behaviour.