Upcycled vs. Conventional: Food product preference assessment using optical brain monitoring

• ¹ LeBow College of Business, Drexel University, Department of Marketing, United States
• ² Department of Nutrition Sciences, College of Nursing and Health Professions, Drexel University, United States
• ³ School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, Drexel University, United States
• ⁴ University of Pennsylvania, Department of Family and Community Health, United States
• ⁵ Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, The Division of General Pediatrics, United States

Understanding a product’s impact on users and assessing how consumers perceive such a product is critical for new product development. Standard product assessment is performed via self-reported measures that incorporate methods such as surveys, focus groups, and interviews. These methods provide subjective measures and can create systemic bias. Such studies also usually need extremely large number of subjects to reach meaningful statistical power. Moreover, consumers may not necessarily fully articulate and retrospectively correctly identify how they perceived the product. The rise of non-invasive and non-clinical functional neuroimaging presents an opportunity to access a more direct and objective measurement of the consumer’s interaction and response to a product testing. Neuroimaging tools, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and Electroencephalogram (EEG), have been utilized in initial neuromarketing studies (Ariely & Berns, 2010), however various limiting factors such as high operational cost, restrictions on the participant during data collection, and the speed and ease of sensor setup limit use of these in large scale deployment as well as in actual field conditions. Functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is the youngest and still emerging neuroimaging technique that utilizes near infrared light to measure oxygenation changes in outer cortex. The latest generation of optical brain imaging uses wearable and wireless sensor pads to enable measurement of brain activity in non-tethered and ambulatory settings (Ayaz et al., 2013). In this study, our goal is to assess perception of Value Added Surplus Products (VASP or upcycled), which are manufactured from ingredients that are byproducts from producing other food products. For example, an upcycled muffin may use ingredients such as flour milled from the leftover grain from beer brewing. These products represent an opportunity to produce food that is sustainable, healthy, and cost-effective. Consistent with the Neuroergonomics approach, behavioral and brain activities of participants were measured in response to evaluating presented product and price. A total of 30 participants volunteered for the study and viewed conventional and upcycled food products. In each session, participants viewed a total of 10 products, 5 conventional and 5 upcycled. Participants viewed the whole set twice, before and after an intervention, a video promotion about reducing food waste that was either rational (numbers and statistics on food waste), emotional (emotional aspects of food waste) or neutral (a food related video without any food waste related message). During product viewing, participants voted yes or no for a purchasing decision on the product at a given price. For each product, 5 different prices were presented based on the ranges identified in an earlier study (Bhatt et al., 2017). Preliminary results indicate initially participants rated higher value (higher willingness to pay) for conventional products compared to upcycled product. However, after the intervention, the value associated with conventional products decreased and the value of upcycled products increased significantly. (F1,559.5=4.33, p<0.04). Moreover, the intervention type and the order also exhibited a significant interaction (F2,561=3.70, p<0.03). The brain activation measured via fNIRS during viewing and decision making indicated a significant interaction for condition intervention. The F-statistics map indicated a strong response in lateral anterior prefrontal cortex. Data acquisition for the study is still ongoing and further analysis will compare if ratings of the larger audience are related to the accuracy or brain activity than those of the individuals from whom the brain data is obtained.