food neophobia among the finns and related responses to familiar and unfamiliar foods

food neophobia among the finns and related responses to familiar and unfamiliar foods

Food Quality and Preference 12 (2001) 29-37

Food Quality

and Preference www.elsevier.com/locate/foodqual

Food neophobia among the Finns and related responses to familiar

and unfamiliar foods

Hely Tuorila**, Liisa Lahteenmaki*!, Leena Pohjalainen °, Leila Lotti?

“Department of Food Technology, PO Box 27, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland

®MDC Food and Farm Facts, PO Box 505, FIN-02101 Espoo, Finland

Received 31 March 2000; received in revised form 6 July 2000; accepted 10 July 2000

Abstract

A representative sample of the Finns (n= 1083) rated the familiarity of 20 foods designated to be “familiar” or “unfamiliar” and willingness to try them Subjects also filled in a 10-item questionnaire measuring their individual food neophobia Food neophobia scores decreased with increasing education and with the degree of urbanization Men were more neophobic than women, and the elderly (66-80 years) were more neophobic than the other age groups Subjects with high food neophobia were less likely to have tasted or eaten the rated foods than were those with low food neophobia Food neophobia significantly predicted the willingness to try “unfamiliar’’, and also some ““familiar” foods In factor analysis, the items of the food neophobia scale loaded on two factors but the variance was mainly explained by the first factor related to the interest in new foods The second factor may reflect a general concern about trying unknown foods Overall, the translated food neophobia scale appeared to be a valid instrument for the characterization of consumer responses to unfamiliar foods © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd All rights reserved

Keywords: Food neophobia; Familiarity; Willingness to try foods

1 Introduction

Food neophobia, the tendency to avoid new foods,

has been regarded as a_ biologically meaningful

mechanism that protects individuals from consuming

potentially toxic foods (see Rozin & Vollmecke, 1986)

Pliner and Hobden (1992) developed and validated a 10-

item verbal instrument food neophobia scale (FNS) to

quantify this individual trait The items are statements

rated by each individual on a 7-point scale from “‘dis-

agree’ to ‘agree’ Canadian subjects, mainly students,

served as the study population during the development

and validation The FNS has been applied in several

North American and other studies related to consumer

responses to unfamiliar foods in its original English

form (e.g Frank & MHursti, 1999; Frank, Reilley,

Schroth, Werk & Wehner, 1997; Meiselman, Mas-

troianni, Buller & Edwards, 1999; Raudenbush &

Frank, 1999; Raudenbush, Schroth, Reilley & Frank,

* Corresponding author Tel.: +358-9-191-58216; fax: +358-9-

191-58212

E-mail address: hely.tuorila@helsinki.fi CGH Tuorila)

' Current address: VTT Biotechnology, PO Box 1500, FIN-02044

VTT, Finland

1998; Tuorila, Meiselman, Bell, Cardello & Johnson, 1994; Tuorila, Meiselman, Cardello & Lesher, 1998); or translated in Swedish (Hursti & Sjoden, 1997; Koivisto

& SJöden, 1996) or in Finnish (Arvola, Lahteenmaki & Tuorila, 1999; Pliner, Lahteenmaki & Tuorila, 1998; Tuorila, Andersson, Martikainen & Salovaara, 1998) There has been informal concern about the meaning and interpretation of individual FNS statements in dif- ferent populations and cultures (e.g Koivisto & Sjoden, 1996), but the structure of the scale has not been criti- cally examined in these studies

Several studies reporting FNS values have involved actual evaluation or tasting of unfamiliar foods (e.g., Arvola et al., 1999; Tuorila et al., 1994; Tuorila, Andersson et al., 1998; Tuorila, Meiselman et al., 1998)

In those studies, we have been unable to locate subjects representing the extreme end of the FNS, 1.e., the most neophobic subjects Likewise, large Swedish surveys (Koivisto & Sjoden, 1996; Hursti & Sjoden, 1997) suggest relatively low FNS values among adult Swedes compared

to values presented by Pliner and Hobden (1992)

The first aim of the present study was to describe the Finnish population in terms of food neophobia, by pay- ing attention to responses from different demographic subgroups based on gender, age, education and living

0950-3293/01/$ - see front matter © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd All rights reserved

PII: S0950-3293(00)00025-2

area Second, to provide evidence on the factor struc-

ture of the scale, responses to items were examined

using factor analysis Third, further evidence on the

validity of the scale was provided by having subjects

rate their willingness to try unfamiliar and familiar

foods Since the food stimuli that were rated for willingness

to try were names of real foods, the effects of food neo-

phobia were analyzed based on whether the subjects had

tasted or eaten a product before (thus, the product

should be familiar to a person) or not (in this case, the

product should be genuinely unfamiliar to a person)

2 Materials and methods

2.1 Data collection

The data were collected by a nationwide marketing

research agency (MDC Food & Farm Facts) from

respondents who regularly participate in surveys in their

homes by submitting their data using a PC and a

modem provided by the agency The respondents are

representative of the Finnish population The survey

was conducted during two consecutive weekends in the

spring of 1996 During the first weekend, subjects

responded to questions on food stimuli, and during the

second they filled in the food neophobia scale In addi-

tion to information collected for the present study, sub-

jects answered other questions on their shopping and

consumption habits and food attitudes (approx 300

questions during the two weekends) Approximately

1250 respondents participated in each of the two runs of

data collection, but only 1083 completed both parts

The data from these subjects were used in the analyses

A total of 20 foods were chosen to represent familiar

and unfamiliar foods of both plant and animal origin

(see Table 3 for food names) Along with familiar and

unfamiliar ethnic foods, other types of unfamiliar foods

were included: Benecol® margarine that had recently

been launched in Finland as a cholesterol lowering

“functional” food; Lo® reduced calorie chocolate bar

(also manufactured in Finland); and FlavSav® tomato

which was claimed to be genetically modified These

three foods were included to examine how specifically

the food neophobia scale reflects consumer responses to

ethnic vs other types of unfamiliar foods The English

translations of the food names, given in Table 3, corre-

spond to the original Finnish expressions as closely as

possible

The respondents rated the food stimuli on two 5-point

scales The familiarity scale consisted of five categories

labeled “‘I do not recognize the product” =1; “I recog-

nize the product, but I have not tasted it” =2; “‘I have

tasted” = 3; “‘I occasionally eat the product” =4; and “I

regularly eat the product’ =5 The willingness to try or

use each product was rated on a 5-point scale with only

the ends verbally anchored, 1=“not at all” and 5=“extremely”’

Ten statements belonging to the food neophobia scale (Pliner & Hobden, 1992, see Table 1) were rated on a 7- point scale from “‘strongly disagree”’ to “strongly agree”’ (all categories verbally anchored) The gender, year of birth, education (1=lowest level/minimal, 2 =middle level, 3=high school completed), and living area (grouped as | =city or large town, 2=countryside town, 3=countryside) of the respondents had been recorded

in an earlier survey

2.2 Data analyses The individual FNS values were computed as the sum

of ratings given to ten statements, after the five negative items had been reversed; the FNS scores thus ranged from

10 to 70 The items were factor analyzed (maximum like- lihood method, varimax rotation) Four-way analysis of variance was used to determine the main effects of gender, age, education, living area, and their two-way interactions

on FNS value Based on their year of birth, the respon- dents were divided into six age groups: 16-25; 26-35;

36-45; 46-55; 56-65 and 66-80 years

Based on FNS scores, subjects were divided into sub- groups representing low (10—22.4), medium (22.5—45.3), and high (45.4-70) food neophobia (food neophobia grouping, FNG) The cut points were at one standard deviation (11.4) from the mean 33.9, and the respective number of subjects in each subgroup was 188 (17.4%),

740 (68.3%), and 155 (14.3%)

The familiarity of food stimuli at different levels of food neophobia was preliminarily analyzed by dichot- omizing the familiarity ratings into categories “not recognized/tasted” (ratings 1 and 2) vs “thas tried/used the product” (ratings 3-5) Subsequently, X? analysis (2x3) was used to compare familiarity (tasted vs not tasted) in the three FNG groups

Pearson’s correlation coefficients were computed for

an overall view of the relationships between FNS and willingness to try or eat food stimuli Two-way analysis

of variance was used to determine the main effects of familiarity (the dichotomized form, see above) and FNG, and their interaction, on the rated willingness to try food stimuli The ANOVA, rather than correlation

or regression approach, was used in the analyses because (1) we were especially interested in the will- ingness to try/eat among subjects in each extreme ends

of the FNS scale behavior, and (2) the verbally anchored familiarity scale did not fulfill the criteria of a continuous scale, but on the other hand, provided a clear cut-off point (at tasted vs not tasted) that in ear- lier studies has proven to be important for the percep- tion of unfamiliar foods (Arvola et al., 1999) Furthermore, analyses of covariance were conducted, in which the demographic variables were added into the

Hf Tuorila et al / Food Quality and Preference 12 (2001) 29-37 31

Table 1

Food neophobia scale, mean values of items and varimax rotated factor matrix Items negative to food neophobia, marked with R, were recoded prior to analyses Loadings that are higher on either factor have been marked bold

ANOVA model as covariates, one at a time, to examine

whether the demographics contributed to the will-

ingness ratings to the extent that they could make the

food neophobia scores redundant

3 Results

3.1 Food neophobia scale

The scale items loaded mainly on two factors (Table

1) The first is related to the interest (or disinterest) in

trying new and ethnic foods The second appears to

relate to a general concern vs carelessness with respect to

trying unknown foods However, most of the variance

was explained by the first factor, and Cronbach’s alpha

of the scale was 0.847 A subsequent analysis showed

that the omission of the items 3, 8 and 9, which pri-

marily loaded on the second factor, would have resulted

in alpha 0.853, and this derived 7-item scale would have

Table 2

Food neophobia scores by gender, age, education, and living area

Living area> ~—- City or large town 32.9 11.3 10-70 707

Countryside town 34.7 11.0 10-68 256

4 Missing cases, n= 5

6 Missing cases, n= 10

correlated with the original 10-item scale 0.942 (Pear- son’s r) Thus, no essential improvement would have been obtained by the omission of individual items loading

on the second factor

The mean FNS score of the entire group of respondents was 33.9 (S.D.=11.4) (Table 2) Women were less neo- phobic than men (main effect of gender, F [1, 1024]= 9.9, P=0.002) The higher the education of a subject, the less neophobic s/he was (main effect of education, F [2,1024] =8.7, P<0.001) The food neophobia increased with age, particularly with the highest age group (main effect of age group, F [5, 1024]=3.8, P=0.002) The food neophobia decreased with the increasing degree of urbanization (main effect of living area, F [2,1024]= 7.0, P=0.001) No significant interactions among these factors were observed

3.2 Familiarity of food stimuli Most subjects had tried or eaten most foods desig- nated to be familiar, and most subjects had not tried nor did not recognize foods that were designated to be unfamiliar (Table 3) However, pasha, turkey and meat balls appeared to be intermediate in terms of familiarity,

as roughly two-thirds of the subjects recognized and had

at least tried them, while one-third had not Pasha is a high-fat, high-sugar dairy product of eastern Finnish origin and is an essential part of the Greek Catholic Easter celebration Turkey meat has been available in Finland mainly during the past decade Meat balls are very familiar to the Finns, and the unexpectedly low recognition rate derives from our description that referred

to a special type of meat balls

A clear relationship was observed between FNG and the percentage of subjects who had tasted the food sti- muli (Table 3) Seven foods in the group of familiar foods and six foods in the group of unfamiliar foods had been tried significantly more often by those with low food neophobia than by those high in food neo- phobia

Table 3

Food stimuli in the order of familiarity and characterized by origin For each food neophobia group, the percentage of those who have tried a food

is given Correlations between FNS and willingness to try are also reported

Food name? N (tasted) Origin % Subjects who have tried by food neophobia group FNS x willingness

Familiar foods

Unfamiliar foods

4 Food names are translated so as to correspond to the original Finnish expression in the questionnaire as closely as possible (familiarity cate- gories and footnote explanations were not available to subjects)

> P values refer to the X? (df=2) tests in which the earlier tasting vs not tasting were compared in the three FNG groups

© Finnish Easter pudding

4 Finnish specialty cheese

© Eastern Finnish Easter pudding

£ Nutritionally modifed brand product

& n.s.=Not significant, *P <0.05, **P<0.01, ***P< 0.001

3.3 Willingness to try food stimuli

The correlations between FNS and willingness to try

or eat a food ranged from 0 to —0.35 (Table 3) They

were highly significant for all “unfamiliar” foods and

lower, yet in most cases significant, for the “‘familiar”’

foods

An earlier contact with a food (had tasted a food vs

not) had a significant main effect on the willingness to

try all twenty foods (Figs 1 and 2, Table 4) This held

true regardless of the “‘general’’, cultural perception of

the familiarity, thus subjects maintained their reluctance

to taste if they had not done it earlier, even when a food

was culturally very familiar

Food neophobia group (FNG) had a significant main

effect on the willingness to try nine foods: pineapple,

strawberry yogurt, bread cheese, beef tomato, pasha,

turkey, snails, falafel balls, and genetically modified

tomato (Figs le,g,h,i and 2a,b,f1,J) The first four are

foods that originally had been categorized as familiar,

and the latter five had been categorized as unfamiliar

For four foods — pineapple, strawberry yogurt, beef

tomato, and snails — the effect was further qualified by interaction between familiarity and FNG For Lo® chocolate bar and for tofu, the familiarity by FNG interaction was the only significant effect The trends shown in Figs | and 2 suggest that an earlier experience

of pineapple, strawberry yogurt, beef tomato, Lo® cho- colate bar and tofu increased the willingness to try among the most neophobic subjects, compared to those neophobics who had not tried these foods A different

interaction was observed in the case of snails, where the

food neophobia status was a stronger predictor of unwillingness to try among those who had earlier experi- ence of snails, compared to those who had not tried snails Thus, highly neophobic subjects were encouraged to try most foods based on their earlier experience, but in the case of snails, they were discouraged by their experience Only eleven respondents reported that they had tasted the genetically modified FlavSav® tomato and among these, none was in the highest FNG group Therefore, only one-way analysis was conducted, resulting in a highly significant negative relationship between the willingness to try and the increasing FNG (Fig 2))

H Tuorila et al./ Food Quality and Preference 12 (2001) 29-37 33

Has not tried — — @— —

9 _ f) FLORA MARGARINE

| ee e

@

93

5 _g) STRAWBERRY YOGURT

(984)

Sndh

2- SN ‘Se (99)

9 > a) SMOKED HAM (1048)

1

4- ®G— _ °_— ¬ °

3 -

ví z _—e

9 C) TUPLA CHOCOLATE BAR

~ > _

3

———-

1

2 +d) MAMMI

3 - — tr“ et ce eeceee

@ ¬ —#

1 e "-— ——~—-

15)

1

9 ¬_ ji) BEEF TOMATO

4-

@

1

5 j) MEAT BALLS (specified type)

3 i

na le ETS &

Food Neophobia Group

Fig 1 Mean ratings of willingness to try foods originally categorized as familiar, in three groups of food neophobia (1 =low, 2= medium, 3 = high)

by groups of subjects who had tried or eaten a product before vs those who did not recognize or had not tried the product The values given in parentheses are the numbers of subjects in two subgroups.

Has tried

Ö 1a) PASHA

" 2 “——,_ (764)

eo

2 - ~~~s-@ _ (319)

"“~-

1

1 2 3

4 mm a i @

®— ~

dc —-e_ (414)

~e

2 -

1

9 - ¢) LO CHOCOLATE BAR

4 _

"¬ ` -@

1

5 d) TOFU (soy protein product)

cen ®

3 - TT”

¬~ sœ

1

5_

e) BENECOL MARGARINE

4 _

1

Has not tried— - @— —

9 > f) SNAILS

4 _

3 (936) 9 ¬

—

5 g) YOSA (oat bran product)

4 -

(56)

3 - TT

Or ~~~ WW @- _ (1027)

2 - "778

1

9 ¬_h)LONGAN FRUIT

e-

_—¬-e

1

5 -ï)FALAFEL BALLS

eo

_"“~>e

1

1 2 3

Sj) FLAVSAV TOMATO

3 - ae (11)

_“~e

1 Food Neophobia Group

|

Fig 2 Mean ratings of willingness to try foods originally categorized as unfamiliar, in three groups of food neophobia (1 =low, 2=medium,

3 =high) by groups of subjects who had tried or eaten a product before vs those who did not recognize or had not tried the product The values given in parentheses are the numbers of subjects in two subgroups.

Hf Tuorila et al / Food Quality and Preference 12 (2001) 29-37 35

Table 4

Effect of food neophobia group (low, medium, high) and familiarity

(not recognized or tasted vs tried or eaten the product earlier) on

willingness to try foods, 2-way analysis of variance, F ratios (df for

familiarity =1; for FNG=2; for Familiarity x FNG =2; residual=

1077)

FNG?

Familiar foods

Meat balls (“‘eines’’) 83.2*** 0.05 2.04

Unfamiliar foods

Tofu (soy protein product) 74.40*** 1.81 4.09*

Yosa (oat bran product) 14.40*** 1.78 0.48

(genetically modified)?

4 One-way analysis of variance

6 *P<0.05, **P<0.01, ***P<0.001

Due to the associations between FNS and demo-

graphics, the analyses of covariance were conducted to

see if entering demographic variables as covariates would

reduce the effect of FNG on willingness to try foods Sig-

nificant regressions were, in many cases, produced by the

covariates but the significant main effect of the FNG

and the significant interaction FNG by familiarity,

obtained in the two-way analyses of variance, remained

unchanged Thus, the demographic variables were not

powerful enough to supersede the impact of food neo-

phobia

4 Discussion

4.1 Food neophobia scale

The food neophobia scores of the present, representa-

tive group of the Finnish population were normally dis-

tributed, with a significant proportion of subjects in

both extremes of the scale Approximately similar mean

and dispersion statistics have been observed by Pliner

and Hobden (1992) in Canadian students; by Frank et

al (1997) in US students; and by Frank and Hursti

(1999) in a representative US sample On the other

hand, Swedish parents had relatively low FNS values (Hursti & Sjoden, 1997; Koivisto & Sjéden, 1996) Sev- eral other studies on selected population groups have likewise resulted in mean FNS values lower than the present ones, e.g in a group of UK students (Meiselman

et al., 1999); in adult members of a US consumer panel (Tuorila et al., 1994; Tuorila, Meiselman et al., 1998); and in urban Finnish women who participated in cheese evaluations (Arvola et al., 1999) However, voluntary consumer panelists who know that their task will involve tasting may be a biased sample for a food neo- phobia study, even when convinced to participate (e.g Arvola et al.) Even if only a questionnaire on foods is

to be completed, there is a risk that those who complete the questionnaire hold different general attitudes to or interests in foods, compared to non-respondents (e.g Hursti & Sjéden; Koivisto & Sjéden) In the present study, we presumably avoided a selection bias as the subjects responded to questions on foods as part of their commitment to participate in surveys on any consumer goods

The food neophobia scores were lower among women than among men, a trend that has also been observed among Swedish adults (Hursti & Sjéden, 1997; Koivisto

& Sjdden, 1996) but not, for example, among Canadian (Pliner & Hobden, 1992) or UK (Meiselman et al., 1999) students, or among Finnish 15-year-old teenagers (Tuorila, Andersson et al., 1998) This difference between genders was true in all age groups, as no sig- nificant gender by age interaction was observed It may have cultural origins, as women get exposed to foods and various food-related issues more extensively than men, and exposures to unfamiliar foods are known to extinguish neophobic responses (Pliner, Pelchat & Grabski, 1993) An analogous finding is that women recognize food odors better than men do (Cain, 1982), probably because odors are more likely a part of their daily life than they are for men Furthermore, food professionals have low food neophobia scores, com- pared to non-specialists, which further suggests that food experience influences interest in trying new foods (Frank & Kalisewicz, 2000)

Other demographic variables were also related to food neophobia As to the effect of age, the high food neophobia scores among the elderly could not have been predicted by previous results A small sample of elderly Finns had FNS scores that were close to the overall mean of the present study (Tuorila, Andersson

et al., 1998), and McFarlane and Pliner (1997) reported

a decreasing food neophobia with increasing age; their oldest age group consisted of subjects >40 years A high education predicted low food neophobia, a finding that was similar to US and Swedish populations (Frank

& Hursti, 1999) Education is likely to enhance the access and exposures to various stimuli, events and issues, and thereby it can perhaps extinguish neophobia

The urban subjects were less neophobic than those living

in the countryside, and the effect of living area may,

again, be of a similar origin Some items on the FNS

scale, referring to contacts with ethnic foods and visits

to ethnic restaurants, are probably irrelevant for a large

majority of non-urban elderly Finns, as they do not fit

their meal patterns or life styles (Prattala, 2000), thus

leading to unreliable responses to these items

Based on the factor analysis, food neophobia items

did not compose a coherent single dimension, but some

of the variance was explained by a second factor related

to carelessness vs concern about eating or intake For

example, the item no 8 (“I am very particular about the

foods I will eat’) may refer to a concern caused by

dietary restrictions rather than to food neophobia or

neophilia; the other items loading highly on the second

factor may be related to this type of rejection as well

Koivisto and Sjéden (1996) cite unpublished data by

SjOden suggesting, likewise, that the item 8 is an outlier;

and Frank (personal communication) reports problems

with the interpretation of this item among North American

subjects Subjects who are concerned about their dietary

regimen may see and rate these items in that particular

context Overall, however, it is encouraging that the FNS

scale operates in foreign cultures as well as it seems to do

4.2 Responses to unfamiliar and familiar foods

Whether foods were familiar or unfamiliar, less neo-

phobic subjects had more frequently tasted and eaten

them than more neophobic subjects This suggests that

high food neophobia is associated with a diet with fewer

items and less variety than that of less neophobic indi-

viduals Hursti and Sjéden (1997) similarly found that

high food neophobia scores of subjects (Swedish

mothers and fathers) were significantly correlated with

the number of foods that a subject had never eaten, and

Raudenbush and Frank (1999) observed lower familiarity

ratings of several familiar foods among neophobics,

compared to neophilics Furthermore, Raudenbush et al

(1998) reported smaller sniffing magnitudes of food-related

stimuli among neophobics, compared to neophilics These

observations suggest that people scoring high in food

neophobia are possibly not only, or perhaps not even

primarily, those who have fear of new foods; they may

be individuals who have little interest in foods and per-

haps focus their energy and excitement on other types of

issues and activities

A dramatic difference was observed in the ratings of

willingness to try among those who had at least tasted

vs those who had not tasted or even recognized a food

The willingness to try was greatly enhanced by earlier

tasting Arvola et al (1999) likewise found that a tasting

experience was highly critical for the intention to purchase

a cheese, compared to attitudinal predictors In experi-

mental conditions among children (Birch, McPhee,

Shoba, Pirok & Steinberg, 1987), tasting has reduced food neophobia and increased the willingness to eat Significant interactions among the familiarity and food neophobia group suggested that the tasting experience was particularly beneficial for the highly neophobic subjects, as their willingness ratings were greatly enhanced by the earlier experience For example, tofu and Lo® chocolate bar received high willingness ratings from highly neophobic subjects who had tasted them, while those neophobics who had not tasted rated their willingness very low On the contrary, willingness ratings of snails were greatly discouraged among med- ium and high neophobics by the experience of having tasted snails Thus, a positive tasting experience can be particularly encouraging for those whose fear for the novelty is high; while a negative tasting experience can discourage further experimenting among neophobics The tasting experience helps subjects to realize whether the sensory properties are better or worse than expected (cf Tuorila et al., 1994)

Food neophobia had no effect on willingness to try the four most familiar foods (smoked ham, tuna fish, Tupla® chocolate bar and mémmi), but it significantly decreased the willingness to try pineapple, strawberry yogurt, bread cheese, beef tomato, pasha, turkey, snails, falafel balls, and genetically modified tomato Most of these foods were either described as being of animal origin (strawberry yogurt, bread cheese, snails and turkey),

or subjects knew or could guess this (pasha), or the name of the food was such that the origin could not be derived from it (“falafel balls’’) Moreover, the name of beef tomato contains an association with meat Only pineapple and genetically modified tomato were free of associations with animal products On the contrary, the willingness ratings were unrelated to food neophobia when the plant origin was explicit from the name (“tofu — soy protein product”, “yosa — oat bran product’, “‘longan fruit”, “Lo chocolate bar”, “Benecol margarine”) These responses support, at least to some extent, the finding by Pliner and Pelchat (1991) who reported more neophobic responses to products of animal origin than

to those of plant origin; but they contrast with the finding by Tuorila, Meiselman et al (1998) in which reindeer meat was rated more positively than e.g arctic cloudberry jam when served to subjects who were unfa- miliar with these foods In the latter study, respondents were from a consumer panel and none of them were highly neophobic

Ratings of unfamiliar, nutritionally modified foods had only one significant relationship with the food neo- phobia grouping, in that willingness to try Lo® chocolate bar was positively affected by familiarity in the highest neophobia group The willingness to try Benecol® was unrelated to food neophobia Ratings of these foods may reflect a non-neophobic response to nutritionally modified products, but they can equally well reflect

Hf Tuorila et al / Food Quality and Preference 12 (2001) 29-37 37

general responses to foods of plant origin Interestingly,

the increasing food neophobia significantly reduced the

willingness to try genetically modified tomato, although

it was clearly of plant origin Responses to Lo® choco-

late bar and to FlavSav® tomato suggest that the FNS

scores may predict responses to unfamiliar foods that

are non-ethnic for their origin

Finally, the results strongly suggest that familiarity of

a food is not a cultural, but an individual experience

A food that is well-known in a particular culture is

unfamiliar for a person until s/he gets to taste it At

that point, his or her overall level of willingness to try

it (again) is dramatically altered Consequently, the

only valid categorization of foods as ‘familiar’ and

“unfamiliar” can be done by individual subjects of a

study

Acknowledgements

This study has been partially conducted with financial

support from the Commission of European commu-

nities, under the title “The development of models for

understanding and predicting consumer food choice”’

(AIR-CT94-1315) The authors thank Dr Hannu Rita

for his useful comments on an earlier draft of the paper

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