Comparison of the consumers’ expected and actual perception of food investigated by Napping: a case study with Béarnaise sauce

In the present work we investigate the consumers’ expected perception of food, using packages of béarnaise sauce, with the preference of the actual product. Further we compare the results of the consumer panel with the outcome of an analytical sensory panel. The ambition was also to use innovative techniques to get additional insights of the consumers’ perception of food. Global Napping was performed with a consumer panel on the expected preference and partial Napping was conducted for evaluating the perception of the actual products. Results were complemented with preference tests and rankings, as well as the connection of the product to a package. An analytical sensory panel performed partial Napping of the products. In addition new and simple method of Napping data evaluation is presented. The results showed a mismatch between the perception of the package and the actual product. Different groups, here named as "emotional" and "rational", perceived products in diverse ways. The consumer panel was a highly inhomogeneous group of individuals, whereby the sensory analytical panel had high agreement. Consumers, who used to buy a certain product could not necessarily distinguish this product, neither did they rate this product as their first choice.