Label Claims Influences on Acceptance: Consumers’ Changes Expectation and Intention in a Case Study with Functional Chocolate Ice Cream

Abstract

Label claims leads to consumer driven toward food purchase intention and acceptance. The aim of this study is provide information about label influences using a diet chocolate ice cream. The ice cream was sweetened with polydextrose, maltitol and neosucralose. A group of 112 consumers expressed their perception under two conditions: blind (only testing samples) and informed (evaluating samples with label claim), using two scales: a 9-cm unstructured hedonic scale and a 5-point purchase intention questionnaire. An analysis of variance, Tukey´s test and PCA were calculated. Considering overall liking, consumers differed significantly the samples (P≤0.05) and claims containing “Fiber” were more accepted. Furthermore, the purchase intention was higher under the informed condition, mainly affected by claim with “Fiber”, and so by term “Zero”. These findings showed that changes in the functional property claim influenced consumers’ acceptance. In general, they preferred healthy information, like “With Fiber” and dislike terms associated “Diet” words.