Food Quality and Preference 15 (2004) 429–437

www.elsevier.com/locate/foodqual

The effect of expectations generated by brand name

on the acceptability of dried semolina pasta
R. Di Monaco *, S. Cavella, S. Di Marzo, P. Masi
Dipartimento di Scienza degli Alimenti, Universit

a degli Studi di Napoli, Federico II––Parco Gussone, 80055 Portici, Italy
Received 6 July 2002; received in revised form 7 March 2003; accepted 1 July 2003

Abstract
Focus group interviews were performed to explore which characteristics drive consumer acceptance of pasta. A questionnaire
was used to evaluate the consumer expectations of the product generated by the brand name. Consumer tests were performed in two
different experimental conditions (blind and informed) to evaluate whether the knowledge of brand name affects consumer per-
ception or not. Discrepancy between expected and blind preference ratings was found, suggesting that disconfirmation of expec-
tations occurred for some brands. Hedonic ratings were different in blind and informed test, proving a significant effect of brand
information on liking. Consumers generally moved their ratings towards expectation, revealing an assimilation effect.
Experimental results showed also that the knowledge of brand name did not affect sensory attributes perception suggesting that,
for dried pasta, the expectations generated by the brand name are essentially of the hedonic-based type.

2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Consumer expectation; Brand; Dried pasta

1. Introduction for pasta producers must be to invest in marketing and

Dried pasta represents the 88% of the alimentary
pasta consumption in Italy. The dried pasta market is
characterized by maturity and by elevated competitive-
ness and its growth is nowadays related only to the
export. The high number of competitors is another pe-
culiarity of this market. Barilla is the market leader
(with labels: Barilla, Selezione Oro and Voiello), and has
about 35% of production in volume. The most impor-
tant competitors are De Cecco, Agnesi and Divella (4–
6% of production in volume). La Molisana, Amato,
Buitoni and Granoro follow with lower shares. Market
fragmentation is more evident in the South of Italy,
where local manufacturers generally fulfill the demand
for low price products.
A recent aspect of this market has been the growth of
commercial brands (Torazza, 2000). Annual pro-capita
consumption of dried pasta is of about 24.4 kg which is
a level is unlikely to increase. In this context the priority
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +39-812539328; fax: +39-817754942.
E-mail address: dimonaco@unina.it (R. Di Monaco).
0950-3293/$ - see front matter
2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.foodqual.2003.07.003
product innovation. For example there is a growing
interest in consumers in organic pasta, made by small
factories with a premium quality emphasis. Current
brand promotion is based on emotional advertising
(Mazza, 2000). An understanding of the factors that
drive consumer acceptance of these products, such dried
semolina pasta, is an important step in developing a
strategy for successful promotions, particularly for small
companies.
Studying consumer behavior is a multidisciplinary
task involving food science and technology, nutri-
tion, psychology and marketing (Inram, 1999). Percep-
tion of food product characteristics has been shown to
be affected by many individual factors, which include
sensory attributes that interact with consumer physio-
logical, behavioral, and cognitive factors within the
consumer experiences influencing its perception. The
context and background also affect this interaction
(Cardello, 1994).
Among these factors, expectations play an important
role, because they may improve or depress the percep-
tion of a product, even before it is tasted (Deliza &
MacFie, 1996).
430 R. Di Monaco et al. / Food Quality and Preference 15 (2004) 429–437
Expectation can be generated from external attributes
such as the product information (Siret & Issanchou,
2000), nutritional information (Guinard & Marty, 1997;
K€ ahk€
onen & Tuorila, 1998; Tuorila, Andersson, Mar-
tikainen, & Salovaara, 1998; Tuorila, Cardello, & Le-
sher, 1994; Vickers, 1993), price (Dransfield, Zamora, &
Bayle, 1998), packaging and labeling (Guinard, Uotani,
& Schlich, 2001; Lange, Rousseau, & Issanchou, 1999).
Packaging attributes can lead the consumer to purchase
while sensory attributes confirm liking and may deter-
mine repeat purchase. Products should, therefore, con-
vey their sensory properties by their packaging and, by
doing so, consumer expectations can be met. Packag-
ing, advertising, product information and, in general,
image attributes generate consumer expectations, and
if these expectations are not subsequently met by sen-
sory performance of the product, consumer disconfir-
mation may occur (Murray & Delahunty, 2000). The
relationship between expectations and product perfor-
mance is very critical in the case of novel food; in fact
the risk of disconfirming expectations, generated by too
positive or incorrect information, could result in a new
product failure (Tuorila, Meiselman, Cardello, & Le-
sher, 1998).
Two general types of expectation may be distin-
guished, a sensory based expectation, or a hedonic ex-
pectation (Caporale & Monteleone, 2001). In the first
type, expectation leads the consumer to believe that the
product will possess certain sensory characteristics and
influences subsequent perception during consumption.
The latter is related to consumers like or dislike to a
certain degree.
The present study focused on consumer expectations
related to dried pasta generated by brand name.
Brand name is regarded as being very useful when
consumers are choosing between competing items.
During the buying process consumers seek information
from memory and from external environment, process it
and store the results of their purchase in memory to be
used later in another similar purchase. However they try
to use as little data as necessary in order to make their
decision, and this indicates that consumers strive for
efficiency by processing a minimum of information. It is
there likely that the presence of a well-established brand
on the label will be a potent influence in formulating the
sensory expectations of consumers as well as influencing
their choices.
The objectives of this study were:
1. To understand which characteristics the consumers of
pasta process to make their choice, by means of focus
group interviews.
2. To investigate the consumer preferences for dried
pasta.
3. To evaluate the expectations generated by brands
name.
4. To assess the effect of knowledge of brand on the con-
sumer preference and on the sensory attributes’ per-
ception.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Pasta
Eleven samples of spaghetti available on the market
were purchased in a local store. Ten of them had been
indicated during the focus group interviews as the most
popular ones. They were: Agnesi, Amato, Barilla, De
Cecco, Divella, Granoro, La Molisana, Pezzullo, Russo di
Cicciano and Voiello. The other sample chosen was a
trade label: SMA, commercialized by Auchan.
2.2. Preparation of Spaghetti and serving conditions
The cooking time of the spaghetti was that recom-
mended on the pack. The cooked spaghetti were sea-
soned with extra-virgin olive oil (Bertolli Gentile), and
presented to the consumers in a white plastic plate. To
avoid any changing in sensory properties of spaghetti
during the session, all the samples were not cooked at
once, but one at a time, so that each of them experienced
the same time–temperature history prior to consumer
assessment.
Ten grams of each sample were presented to the
consumers and mineral water was provided for rinsing.
2.3. Consumer science methodology
2.3.1. Focus group interviews
Three focus group interviews were performed in the
meeting room of the Department of Food Science at the
Agricultural University of Naples.
The average number of participants in the focus
group was 7, all of them were regular buyers and users
of pasta. Participants were randomly selected from a
database, containing consumers living in Campania, and
they were recruited by phone. Some demographic details
of subjects are listed in Table 1.
The questions to ask the participants were decided in
advance and were formulated in such way to require an
open and discursive answer. To make the subjects feel
comfortable, the discussion began with generic ques-
tions, with references to situations of choice and usual
Table 1
Demographic details of focus groups participants
Focus group No. of participants No. of men Age (average)
1 7 3 46
2 8 4 54
3 6 3 32
 R. Di Monaco et al. / Food Quality and Preference 15 (2004) 429–437
consumption, and then the interview continued with
more specific questions (Calder, 1977; Casey & Krueger,
1994).
To facilitate the discussion about the sensory attri-
butes of the spaghetti, at the end of each interview two
samples of pasta (Barilla and SMA) were provided to
the participants, without revealing their identity (Bogue,
Delahunty, Henry, & Murray, 1999).
Each interview lasted approximately 1 h and was
audio tape-recorded and later transcribed.
2.3.2. Consumers
Forty-five consumers, all regular users of spaghetti
(25 females, 20 males; age range 20–40), took part to the
study. They were recruited on the basis of interest and
availability and they were also na€ıve in regard of sensory
analysis of pasta products.
2.3.3. Consumer questionnaire
The questionnaire was prepared and distributed to
the subjects that were assisted during the filling of the
form. The questionnaire contained demographic ques-
tions (gender, age, employment, family members, etc.),
questions on food attitude and on frequency at meal
preparation, and questions related to pasta buying
habits (favorite size, usually acquired brand). The con-
sumers were also asked to evaluate, on a nine-point
hedonic scale, the expected liking after having visually
inspected empty packages of the 11 different pasta
brands.
2.3.4. Consumer test
Consumer tests were carried out in the Sensory Sci-
ence Laboratory of the Department of Food Science at
the University of Naples. The laboratory consists of an
experimental kitchen, meeting room and eight booths.
Consumer tests were performed in two different ex-
perimental conditions (blind and informed condition).
First blind scores were collected and then informed
ones. Hedonic ratings were provided by the consumers
during two blind-tasting and two informed-tasting ses-
sions held over two consecutive weeks.
A practicing session was performed before the test, to
allow the consumers to become familiar with the use of
the hedonic scale. Total session lengths lasted between
40 and 50 min. In the blind condition, samples were
served monadically on white plastic plates identified by
three random digit codes. In the informed condition,
samples were served monadically on white plastic plates
identified by the brand name.
To randomize the order of sample presentation, nine
different randomized orders were used. All together the
11 samples were randomized first, and then divided in
two subgroups (five or six for each session).
The presentation orders were the same for the two
experimental conditions.
431
The number of samples tasted was six or seven for
each session and consumers were unaware of the num-
ber of products to be evaluated. The first sample eval-
uated by consumers was not taken into account in the
analysis. This sample is commonly called ‘‘dummy’’ and
its role is to define a reference point for all consumers.
Although generally consumers are asked to give
judgements only on the acceptability or preference, it is
sometimes interesting to get information regarding
sensory characteristics as well. Thus, consumers were
asked to evaluate first, the overall liking of the pasta
sample on a scale with the ends anchored as ‘‘very bad’’/
‘‘very good’’; then its sensory attributes: color on a scale
ranging from too light to too dark; wheat taste on a
scale ranging from absent to very intense; cooking per-
formance on a scale ranging from too uncooked to too
cooked; stickiness on a scale ranging from not at all
sticky to very sticky; wrinkledness on a scale ranging
from very smooth to very wrinkled; capability of bind-
ing the sauce on a scale ranging from not at all capable
to very capable. All scales were nine-point scales.
Sensory attributes evaluated during the consumer
tests were those mentioned by focus group interviewed.
2.4. Data analysis
2.4.1. Focus group interviews
The focus group interviews were transcribed from the
audio tape-recording and summarized, and a list of cited
sensory attributes and brands was reported. Comments
made by the participants were included in the summary
to give an accurate perspective of the attitudes and
opinions expressed.
2.4.2. Consumer questionnaire
The consumer questionnaire data were analysed by
means of SPSS v10.1 package. Analysis of variance and
Duncan’s test (p 6 0:05) were performed on the expected
liking data, with brands as sources of variation. De-
mographic characteristics and consumption habits of
interviewed consumers were also used as factors in two-
way analysis of variance.
2.4.3. Consumer test
Analysis of variance and Duncan’s test (p 6 0:05)
were performed on data relative to the hedonic ratings
in both blind and informed conditions, using brands as
source of variation.
To evaluate the effect of information condition, ex-
pected minus blind liking scores (E ) B) and informed
minus blind liking scores (I ) B) were calculated for each
sample and paired t-tests were performed in order to
establish if those differences were significantly different
from zero (Lange et al., 1999).
Multivariate and univariate analyses of variance
were performed in order to test the significance of the
432 R. Di Monaco et al. / Food Quality and Preference 15 (2004) 429–437

differences between attributes ratings across the two Table 2

different experimental conditions and across the 11 Sensory attributes and brand names mentioned by the focus group
interviewed
brands and to estimate the effect of experimental con-
ditions on each sensory descriptor for each analysed Sensory attributes Brand names
pasta brand. Color Agnesi
Amato
The matrix of mean ratings for the seven sensory
Wheat taste Barilla
attributes across the 11 samples was also analysed by Stickiness De Cecco
means of the principal component analysis on the co- Divella
variance matrix. For the cooking performance and color Capability of binding the sauce Granoro
scores, before performing PCA analysis, the data were La Molisana
Wrinkledness Pezzullo
pre-treated by folding the scales.
Russo di Cicciano
The results of PCA were presented as biplots with Cooking performance Voiello
both the samples and attributes.

trary, they said that the Barilla sample has a better

3. Results and discussion
3.1. Focus group interviews
The focus group interviews were recorded then tran-
scribed and summarised. The pasta characteristics
mentioned by the participants to the three different
focus groups were quite similar.
In general, the choice of pasta was driven by previous
experience and by the confidence with the brand name,
as was hypothesized. All subjects agreed on the impor-
tance of the material used for packaging, in particular
they said that a transparent pack is to be preferred as
this allows one to assess the color of the pasta. In fact
according to the focus group participant opinion, the
color is an important attribute to estimate product
quality.
Many interviewees felt that price did not influence
their choice too much, as pasta is not an expensive
product. However, it was also felt that variability in
price that existed among different brands did not cor-
respond to real differences among product qualities.
Cooking performance was the most frequently men-
tioned attribute related to pasta quality, the second most
frequently mentioned attribute was the capability of
binding the sauce. As mentioned before, color was in-
dicated as an important discriminative factor. Stickiness
was indicated as the main defect.
cooking performance and a better capability of binding
the sauce.
The attributes and the brand names mentioned in
the course of the focus group interviews are listed in
Table 2.
3.2. Consumer questionnaire
Analysis of variance revealed that the degree of ex-
pected liking varied significantly among the 11 pasta
samples, ranging from 2.9 to 7.8 (F10;484 ¼ 43:73,
p
0:0001).
In Fig. 1 the mean values of the expected liking scores
for the 11 pasta brands are represented as well as the
results of Duncan’s test (p 6 0:05). The highest expec-
tations are generated by Barilla and Voiello brands,
followed by De Cecco. High expectations are also in-
duced by Agnesi, Amato and Russo di Cicciano brands.
Instead Divella and Pezzullo received a middle expected
liking score, whereas low expectations are generated by
Granoro and La Molisana brands. The pasta SMA
generates the lowest expectations, this is probably due to
the fact that SMA is not a popular brand among the
9 a
ab
8 b
c c
7 c
Expected liking

Consumers declared that they were very interested on 6 d d

the geographical area where pasta was manufactured. 5
e
e
All consumers said to prefer local products to support 4 f
the local economy. Some concern about presence of
3
GMOs and radioactive contamination of wheat was
expressed. 2

At the end of the group interview two samples of 1

Russo di Cic.
Granoro

Pezzullo

SMA
Agnesi

De Cecco
Barilla

La Molisana
Amato

Divella

Voiello

pasta, Barilla and SMA, were presented to the partici-

pants without revealing their name.
By observing and tasting two pastas, some of par-
ticipants noticed differences among them. In particular,
the SMA was judged more wrinkled, more sticky, but Fig. 1. Expected mean liking scores for the 11 pasta brands. Means
also, more tasty (having taste of wheat). On the con- with a same letter are not significantly different (p 6 0:05).
 R. Di Monaco et al. / Food Quality and Preference 15 (2004) 429–437 433

Table 3 3.3. Consumer test

Effect of background factors on expected liking
Source of variation p-Values Analysis of variance showed a significant difference
Spaghetti brands 4.8 · 1016 between the sample liking scores when the samples were
Gender 0.344 assessed in the blind condition (F10;484 ¼ 3:14, p <
Age group 0.153
0:001). This differences elicited by sensory assessment
Employment 0.156
Number of people in the household 0.051 were not as large as those elicited by brand name. Fig. 2
Frequency at meal preparation 0.061 indicates that in the tasting condition means range from
Favorite pasta size 0.526 3.6 to 5.1, and only three different groups of pasta are
Food attitude 0.170 revealed (Duncan’s test, p 6 0:05).
Usually acquired brand 0.094
This behaviour suggests that, when the consumers
Spaghetti brands · gender 0.579
Spaghetti brands · age group 0.916 were unaware of the sample identity, they were not able
Spaghetti brands · employment 0.937 to discern among the analysed samples, and they posi-
Spaghetti brands · number of people in the household 0.989 tioned their preference in the middle part of the scale.
Spaghetti brands · frequency at meal preparation 0.752 This is probably due to the similar sensory characteris-
Spaghetti brands · favorite pasta size 0.753
tics of the pasta samples.
Spaghetti brands · food attitude 0.052
All samples, with the exception of Granoro, received a
middle liking score. Granoro, even after tasting it, was
Table 4
the least acceptable pasta. However the pasta SMA,
Usually acquired brands by the respondents to the questionnaire
whose mean expected liking score was very low, once it
Brands Percentage of citations as usu-
ally acquired brand (%)
had been tasted, moved from the lowest liking group to
the highest one.
Agnesi 2.2
Amato 17.8
Analysis of variance applied to informed liking scores
Barilla 57.8 revealed significant differences among the brands
De Cecco 8.9 (F10;484 ¼ 6:17, p < 0:0001). The differences among the
Divella 6.7 samples in terms of overall liking, in this tasting con-
Granoro 0 dition, are a little bit more pronounced than in the blind
La Molisana 0
Pezzullo 0
condition. The results of the Duncan’s test (p 6 0:05)
Russo di Cicciano 6.7 applied to informed-liking ratings are shown in Fig. 3.
SMA 0 Divella is still the most preferred pasta together with
Voiello 0 Barilla, followed closely by Agnesi, De Cecco, Pezzullo
and Voiello; the Granoro and the SMA are the less liked
consumers in the Naples area, and was never mentioned ones.
by focus group participants. When the brand name is known it generates an in-
The subjects rated the expected liking of samples, tense distortion of consumer response to some brands. It
observing their packaging, which were of the same
flexible material except for Barilla that was packaged in 9
a rigid wrap. As mentioned by focus group participants
the packaging has an important role in consumer choice, 8
and the preferred is the transparent one. Both kinds of
7
packaging were transparent.
blind liking scores

As far as the influence of background characteris- 6

a ab ab
tics of interviewed consumers on their expected liking ab ab ab
ab
ab
5 ab
scores, the results of variance analysis are reported in bc
Table 3. Results indicated that demographic charac- c
4
teristics and consumption habits did not affect the
expectation ratings. There were also no significant in- 3
teractions between background variables and spaghetti 2
brands.
Concerning the ‘‘usually acquired brand’’ factor, 1
Russo di Cic.
Molisana
De Cecco

Pezzullo
Divella

Granoro
Barilla

Voiello
Amato
Agnesi

SMA

Table 4 lists the percentage of interviewees who men-

tioned the brands as the most consumed ones. It can be
noticed that Barilla is the most consumed pasta brand,
followed by Amato. No one mentioned Granoro, La
Molisana, Pezzullo, SMA and Voiello as frequently used Fig. 2. Blind mean liking scores for the 11 pasta brands. Means with
brands. a same letter are not significantly different (p 6 0:05).
434 R. Di Monaco et al. / Food Quality and Preference 15 (2004) 429–437

9 Table 5
Effect of expectation on liking scores of pasta
8
Samples E ) Ba I ) Bb I ) Ec

7 Agnesi 1.4 0.5
informed liking scores

a a Disconfirmation Not significant

6 ab ab –
ab ab
bc bc
bc
5 cd Amato 2.2 0.4
d Disconfirmation Not significant
4
–
3
Barilla 3.1 0.7 –
2 Disconfirmation Assimilation 2.4
–
1

Russo di Cic.
2.4
De Cecco

De Cecco 0.5
Molisana
Granoro

Pezzullo
Amato

Divella
Barilla
Agnesi

SMA

Voiello
Disconfirmation Not significant
–

Divella 0.2 0.5

Confirmation Not significant
Fig. 3. Informed mean liking scores for the 11 pasta brands. Means Granoro 0.2 0.1
with a same letter are not significantly different (p 6 0:05). Confirmation Not significant
La Molisana )0.6 )0.2
Confirmation Not significant
is interesting to note that SMA moved to a lower posi-
tion, this means that upon finding out that this pasta Pezzullo 0.4 0.2
had a trade label, some consumers lowered their ratings. Confirmation Not significant
Instead, the Barilla and the Voiello improved their po- Russo di Cicci 1.6 0.0
sitions among the evaluated brands. Granoro is still the ano Disconfirmation Not significant
least liked pasta. )
Table 5 shows the effect of expectations on liking SMA )2.0 )0.7 1.4
scores. When E ) B is significantly different from zero it Disconfirmation Assimilation 

means that a disconfirmation has occurred and when +

I ) B is significantly different from zero it means that Voiello 3.1 0.9 )
brand name affected the liking scores. Then in the case Disconfirmation Assimilation 2.2
of assimilation effect of the brand, I ) E was calculated,

–
a
when this difference was significantly different from zero, Expected minus blind liking scores.
b
it means that assimilation was not complete. Informed minus blind liking scores.
c
Disconfirmation of expectation occurred for all Informed minus expected liking scores.
*
p < 0:05.
samples except Divella, Granoro, La Molisana and Pez- **
p < 0:01.
zullo. Where present, disconfirmation was negative ex- ***
p < 0:001 (t-test, differences from zero).
cept for SMA, which was perceived to be better than
expected. mation and sensory characteristics of samples as-per-
Providing information on the brand name affects the ceived during the test caused the liking score to be
liking score of Barilla, SMA and Voiello pastas. How- located in between the expected score and blind score.
ever this assimilation was not complete, impying that All regression curves showed the same low value of
both extrinsic and intrinsic characteristics of samples slope. Thus, it may suggest that information effect on
have an impact on the informed liking scores. informed scores was similar whatever the product and
In Fig. 4 the effect of information on liking ratings that the sensory characteristics remain important de-
(I ) B) was represented for each subject as a function of terminants of liking also.
the degree of disconfirmation (E ) B), for all samples To evaluate the effect of the knowledge of brand
that showed disconfirmation, and a regression line was name on sensory attributes perception, multivariate
fitted for each product. The plots confirm that, under all analysis of variance was performed with experimental
conditions of positive and negative disconfirmation, conditions and samples as sources of variation. F -ratios
assimilation takes place, even at a high level of discon- for experimental conditions and brands and their sig-
firmation. These results are in agreement with previous nificance are reported in Table 6. One can notice that the
studies on consumer expectation (Cardello & Sawyer, experimental condition did not affect any sensory attri-
1992; Tuorila et al., 1994). butes except for stickiness. Further univariate variance
The regression equations showed a positive slope. analysis, performed for each brand on each sensory
This suggests that the combined effect of brand infor- descriptor indicated that experimental condition signif-
 R. Di Monaco et al. / Food Quality and Preference 15 (2004) 429–437 435

Agnesi Amato Table 6

8 y = 0,25x 8 y = 0,2487x Effect of experimental conditions on sensory attributes scores
2 2
R = 0,107 R = 0,185
6 6
Source of Attributes d.f. F -ratios
4 4 variation
Informed-Blind

Informed-Blind
2 2
Experimental Color 1 1.36
0 0
condition Wheat taste 1 0.002
-2 -2 Cooking performance 1 0.25
-4 -4 Stickiness 1 6.33
-6 -6 Wrinkledness 1 0.36
-8 -8 Capability of binding 1 3.46
-8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8 -8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8 sauce
Expected-Blind Expected-Blind

De Cecco Brands Color 10 28.28

Barilla
8 8 y = 0,3451x Wheat taste 10 0.86
y = 0,3764x R2 = 0,347
6 R2 = 0,364
6 Cooking performance 10 4.62
4 4 Stickiness 10 2.32
Informed-Blind
Informed-blind

2 Wrinkledness 10 2.41
2
0
Capability of binding 10 2.22
0
sauce
-2 -2
*
-4 ¼ p < 0:05.
-4 **
-6
¼ p < 0:01
-6 ***
¼ p < 0:001.
-8 -8
-8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8 -8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8
Expected-Blind Expected-Blind to the hedonic ratings (six sensory pasta characteris-
Russo di Cicciano y = 0,3275x SMA tics + overall liking, across the 11 samples) performed by
8 8 R2 = 0,336
y = 0,3284x consumers in both tasting conditions.
6 R2 = 0,240 6
4
In the blind condition (Fig. 5) the first two principal
4
components accounted for 78% of the variance. Liking,
Informed-Blind

Informed-Blind

2
2
0
in the blind test, was positively related to capability of
0
-2 binding the sauce and negatively to stickiness. Liking was
-2
-4 correlated with cooking performance, although to a les-
-4
-6 ser extent. The spaghetti wrinkledness and color did not
-6
-8 affect liking. This result is in contrast to the focus group
-8 -8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8
-8 -6 -4 -2 0 2
Expected-Blind
4 6 8
Expected-Blind
results, where respondents reported color to be an im-
portant driver of choice. However in the tasting condi-
Voiello
8 y = 0,2668x
tion the spaghetti have been cooked, and differences in
6
2
R = 0,222 the color were not comparable to those in the raw
4 product.
Informed-Blind

2
0 2.0
-2
-4 Barilla

-6
-8
-8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8
Expected-Blind
1.0
Granoro Russo di Cicciano
Pezzullo Color Wheat taste
Fig. 4. Plots of the effect of expectation disconfirm.
SMA
PC2 (32%)

Amato Stickiness Cooking performance

Divella
icantly affected only the sensory evaluation of stickiness 0.0
for the following brands: De Cecco (F1;88 ¼ 4:885, LIKING

p ¼ 0:03), La Molisana (F1;88 ¼ 4:787, p ¼ 0:03) and Agnesi Capability of binding the sauce
Russo di Cicciano (F1;88 ¼ 4:625, p ¼ 0:03). In particular,
De Cecco, La Molisana and Russo di Cicciano result in a -1.0 Wrinkledness

significantly stickier score in the informed condition test

Voiello La Molisana
than in blind one. De Cecco
-1.5
For the other sensory attributes, all wheat taste, in- -2.0 -1.0 0.0 1.0 2.0
dicated significant differences among the samples. PC 1 (46%)
To assess the influence of sensory attributes on con-
sumer liking, principal component analysis was applied Fig. 5. Principal component analysis; blind tasting condition.
436 R. Di Monaco et al. / Food Quality and Preference 15 (2004) 429–437
1.5
De Cecco Voiello
La Molisana
Wrinkledness Agnesi
Capability of binding the sauce
PC 2 (37%)
0.0
Wheat taste
Cooking performance
Stickiness SMA
Color
Russo di Cicciano
Amato
Granoro
-1.5
-2.0 -1.0 0.0
PC 1 (46%)
Fig. 6. Principal component analysis; informed tasting condition.
Barilla, Divella, Pezzullo, Russo di Cicciano and SMA
have the best color and exhibit the best cooking per-
formance. De Cecco, La Molisana and Voiello are the
most wrinkled pastas. Divella and La Molisana brand
exhibit also, the best capability of binding the sauce.
Amato and Granoro are the stickiest samples.
In the informed condition (Fig. 6), the first two prin-
cipal components accounted for 83% of the variance.
In this condition, liking was strongly correlated with
stickiness and capability of binding the sauce only. When
the brand name was known, the cooking performance
was apparently less important to the consumer in for-
mulating his liking judgment.
It is interesting to note also, as shown before in Table
6, that knowledge of brand name did not affect the per-
ception of sensory attributes. In fact, the wrinkledness of
La Molisana, Voiello and De Cecco is again the highest
one. Barilla, Divella, Pezzullo, Russo di Cicciano and
SMA have still the best color and their cooking perfor-
mance, according to the consumers, is still the best one.
Amato and Granoro brands were perceived to be the
stickiest samples, as before.
Divella and La Molisana once more exhibit a good
capability of binding the sauce.
These results demonstrate also that consumers are
very reliable in evaluating the sensory characteristics of
pasta, even though they do not examine foods as an
expert panel does.
4. Conclusions
The hedonic ratings of consumers changed signifi-
cantly in the two conditions, demonstrating the signifi-
cant influence of brand name on consumer response.
This finding is in accordance with that obtained by
several studies. Non-sensory characteristics of food
products play an important role in the consumer choice
(Dransfield et al., 1998; Guinard et al., 2001; Lange
LIKING et al., 1999; Murray & Delahunty, 2000).
However knowledge of brand name did not affect the
Divella
perception of sensory attributes, suggesting that, for
dried pasta, the expectations generated by the brand
name are essentially of the hedonic-based type. This
result must be interpreted within the limits of experi-
mental conditions as measures on expected sensory
Barilla intensity were not collected.
The results of this study revealed also that, when
Pezzullo disconfirmation of expectations occurred for some pasta
brands, consumer ratings generally moved toward their
expectation, supporting for an assimilation effect.
1.0 2.0
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