A modified sorting task to investigate consumer perceptions of extra virgin olive oils

• Published in: Food quality and preference Vol. 21; no. 7; pp. 881 - 892
• Main Authors: Santosa, Metta, Abdi, Hervé, Guinard, Jean-Xavier
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01.10.2010; Elsevier
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; bottles; consumer attitudes; Consumer language; Consumer perceptions; DISTATIS; Extra virgin olive oil; Fat industries; Food industries; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects; Methods of analysis, processing and quality control, regulation, standards; Multidimensional scaling; Social representation theory; sorting; Sorting task; statistical analysis; variance; Consumer language; DISTATIS; Social representation theory; Extra virgin olive oil; Sorting task; Multidimensional scaling; Consumer perceptions; Vegetable oil; Olive oil; Edible oil; Virgin oil; Sorting; Consumer; Perception
• ISSN: 0950-3293; 1873-6343
• DOI: 10.1016/j.foodqual.2010.05.011

A two-stage sorting task was used to probe Californian consumers’ opinions of twenty-five extra virgin olive oils based on visual assessments of the bottles. The modification of the simple sorting task aimed to encourage consumers to further discriminate products through sub-groupings of products within the groups they had already made. Sorting data were analyzed using a 3-way extension of classical multidimensional scaling called DISTATIS which explores the level of consumer agreement as well as the structure of the extra virgin olive oil products. Consumer agreements were explained by 46% of the variances found in the ways consumers sorted the bottles. Decreased amount of explained variance from the first stage to the second stage of the sorting task was observed in the olive oil product structures. Consumers were asked to describe the characteristics defining each group formed. Consumer comments were analyzed qualitatively prior to statistical analysis and were later used to understand the sorting results. Despite background differences in the usage of olive oil products, the majority of the consumers perceived the product set similarly. The two-stage sorting task allowed subjects to provide more criteria or multidimensional views of their perception of the products.