Multisensory contextual cues and information affect plant-based food choices and taste perception

The context in which food is selected and consumed is an important factor in its choice, consumption, and acceptability. This study assessed the effect of information and multisensory contexts on meat-related food choices and taste perception. In total, 224 participants first watched one of two pitches, either discussing the implications of consuming animal meat (sustainable pitch) or promoting body movement (control pitch). Participants were then exposed to one of three multisensory contexts: a ‘sustainable’ context with natural green colours, nature sounds and a flower fragrance, a ‘meat’ context with red colours, the sounds of country music and a smokey BBQ smell, and a monotone off-white ‘neutral’ context with neutral background music and no additional smell. Participants were instructed to choose one of two presented hotdogs (animal meat hotdog or plant-based meat hotdog) and to taste and rate the chosen one on liking and taste attributes. Results showed that multisensory sustainable contextual cues combined with information on sustainability beforehand increased the likelihood of choosing plant-based meat hotdogs over animal meat hotdogs. In addition, while tasting the plant-based meat hotdog, multisensory contextual cues that are inspired by a meat context appeared to enhance taste perception, even for vegans and vegetarians. These findings provide further evidence for the importance of context in food choice and acceptance: the context where people choose plant-based meat should preferably be separated and different from the context of consumption. The findings also imply that information can change behaviour, not just attitudes as previous research indicated, but only if combined with multisensory cues in the context.