Factors affecting consumer’s acceptance towards Spanish tomato products: a preliminary study on gazpacho soup

Abstract

Gazpacho, a traditional ready-to-serve cold vegetable soup, is a good choice to increase the adequate consumption of fruits and vegetables by Spanish consumers. Consumption of gazpacho, a special cold Spanish tomato soup, was initially linked to food eaten at home, but nowadays it is one of the most consumed cold tomato soups by the Spanish population, independent of location. Evaluation of products by consumers is linked to the consumer's own preferences, mainly determined by intrinsic properties of the product, but also by other personal, cultural, socioeconomic, environmental, demographic and marketing reasons. So, the quality of a product is dynamic and changes over time, fashion and consumer. The study of consumer-specific factors by sensory evaluation can provide key information on the development of new products. In this study, we performed a sensory analysis of six commercial gazpacho products from different brands presenting differences in composition that directly affect its sensory characteristics. To interpret and understand the consumers' preferences for each sample, multidimensional analysis was applied to the data obtained. The purpose of this work was to understand the factors affecting consumer acceptance of the tomato soup product, Spanish gazpacho, through sensory evaluation (consumer hedonic test) and the potential correlation with its composition as shown in the label.