Received: 13 July 2016 | Revised: 5 December 2016 | Accepted: 19 January 2017

DOI 10.1111/joss.12254

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

“Welcome on board”: Overall liking and just-about-right ratings

of airplane meals in three different consumption contexts—
laboratory, re-created airplane, and actual airplane

A. de Wijk | Stefanie Kremer

Nancy T. E. Holthuysen | Milou N. Vrijhof | Rene

Consumer Science and Health, Wageningen

University and Research Centre,
Wageningen Food & Biobased Research,
Wageningen, The Netherlands
Correspondence
N. Holthuysen, Consumer Science and
Health, Wageningen University and
Research Centre, Wageningen Food &
Biobased Research, Bornse Weilanden 9,
6708 PD Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Email: nancy.holthuysen@wur.nl
Funding information
DLO/TNO 2013 Topsector Agri&Food, the
Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs,
Agriculture, and Innovation
Abstract
The main objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of contexts on overall liking and just-
about-right (JAR) ratings of airplane meals. A rice dish (meal type A) and a pasta dish (meal type B)
were assessed. Per meal type, two variants were produced (variant 1 and 2). Two hundred forty-
two consumers were randomly allocated to evaluate one of the four meals, first in a laboratory
setting and then in a re-created airplane environment. In addition, 222 passengers did the same
assessments during an actual flight. Specific meals (A1, B1) were less liked in the laboratory than in
the re-created airplane. In general, no differentiation in overall liking occurred per meal type
between the two tested variants in the laboratory, whereas these two variants were significantly
differentiated in liking in the re-created airplane and the actual airplane. Mean overall liking ratings
in the re-created airplane did not significantly differ from the mean overall liking ratings in the
actual airplane. The observed JAR ratings did not differ much between the re-created airplane and
the actual airplane. In summary, the re-created airplane as a testing location produced more similar
test results to the actual airplane than the traditional laboratory.

Practical applications
Sensory consumer testing in re-created contexts may produce results with a higher external valid-
ity than laboratory testing and therefore offer a cost-efficient alternative to extensive sensory
consumer testing in real-life contexts.

1 | INTRODUCTION contextual setting to increase the external validity of the results of

Real-life human eating behavior does not take place in an environmen-
tal vacuum; rather, it happens in context. The context in which con-
sumers eat foods influences their hedonic appraisal of the consumed
foods (de Graaf et al., 2005; Edwards, Meiselman, Edwards, & Lesher,
2003; King, Meiselman, Hottenstein, Work, & Cronk, 2007). Conse-
quently, consumers’ hedonic ratings elicited in a natural consumption
context have been observed to differ from those elicited under con-
trolled sensory laboratory conditions (Boutrolle, Delarue, Arranz,
€ster, 2007; Petit & Sieffermann, 2007). In line with these
Rogeaux, & Ko
empirical observations, a close link between the consumption context
and how consumers feel has been postulated (Desmet & Schifferstein,
2008), and these feelings are thought to be underlying modulators of
food perception, food liking, and overall enjoyment of human eating
experiences (Hartwell, Edwards, & Brown, 2013). Consequently, it is
strongly recommended to assess foods and drinks in the appropriate

nez, Vidal, & Ares, 2014; Meisel-
these consumer tests (Machín, Gime
man, 2013). However, real-life testing as an integral part of the new
product development cycle comes at a price, as these tests are more
burdensome and costly to perform than classical central location tests
—even more so in the case of foods that are intended for consumption
in remote markets such as airplanes.
Both situational and social context have previously been reported
to impact human eating behavior (Stroebele & de Castro, 2004). Situa-
tional context comprises mainly the physical surroundings of the con-
sumer, that is, the situation in which the food is typically consumed
(Carvalho et al., 2015). Social context comprises mainly the people
involved, that is, whether foods are consumed alone or in a group, or
whether they are consumed together with family or with strangers (de
Castro, Brewer, Elmore, & Orozco, 1990; de Castro & de Castro, 1989).
Although social context is considered to be equally important as physi-
cal context (Jaeger & Rose, 2008), only few attempts have been made

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https://doi.org/10.1111/joss.12254
2 of 8 | HOLTHUYSEN
to incorporate it on a structural basis into sensory consumer testing.
Recently, the incorporation of situational context into sensory con-
sumer testing has received considerable scientific attention. For exam-
ple, situational simulation methods have tried to evoke a consumption
situation either by means of providing a descriptive text (Hein, Hamid,
Jaeger, & Delahunty, 2010, 2012) or a text in combination with a situa-
tional image (Piqueras-Fiszman & Jaeger, 2014a,b,c). Other recent
studies applied immersive environments to consumer food choice test-
ing. For example, a virtual coffeehouse—replete with visual, auditory,
and olfactory cues found regularly in this setting—was created (Bang-
cuyo et al., 2015) or a bar-like environment—with different furniture
and clips with visual and music stimuli projected on walls to change the
overall warmth of the ambience (Sester, Deroy, Sutan, & Galia, 2013).
Currently, different results on the impact of testing environments on
sample ratings are reported. Significant differences in mean hedonic
ratings per sample and/or a greater sample discrimination have been
reported by some (Bangcuyo et al., 2015; Hein et al., 2010), whereas
others did not find these differences (Hersleth, Ueland, Allain, & Næs,
2005).
Flying in an aircraft generally has a great physiological and psycho-
logical impact on passengers, and this impact will most likely influence
their eating behavior. Physiological influences felt by humans in air-
planes are the reduced atmospheric pressure, low humidity, back-
ground noise, cosmic radiation, and magnetic-field exposure (Butler,
Nicholas, Lackland, & Friedberg, 2000). In addition, limited space to
move, stress, and boredom, and the close vicinity of strangers are fac-
tors that can psychologically influence humans traveling in airplanes.
Higher taste thresholds have been reported under lower pressure con-
ditions (Burdack-Freitag, Bullinger, Mayer, & Breuer, 2011; Maga &
Lorenz, 1972), and background noise has been reported to suppress
saltiness, sweetness, and overall enjoyment of food (Spence, 2012;
Woods et al., 2011) and hypothesized to not effect umami taste per-
ception (Spence, Michel, & Smith, 2014). If all these influences are
combined, it seems that optimizing airplane meals would ideally require
extended consumer testing in real-life airplanes. However, this is not
feasible within airlines’ day-to-day practices.
Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the effect of various testing
contexts on overall liking ratings of airplane meals. Whereas most pre-
vious studies only compare results from lab situations with results from
semi-real-life contexts, this study includes results from testing in the
real-life situation. Therefore, testing was conducted in three different
contexts: (1) a classical laboratory context (LAB); (2) a semi-real-life
context that re-created as much as possible the situational and social
context of the consumption of airplane meals on airplanes (re-created
airplane (REC); and (3) a real-life test on board an airplane during a real
flight (ACT). The test procedure used in the laboratory reflects the cur-
rent standard procedures in airplane meal testing and thus liking ratings
are assessed based on one-bite evaluations only, whereas in the two
other contexts both liking and just-about-right (JAR) ratings are given
after consumption of the complete meal. On the basis of previously
reported observations (Boutrolle, Arranz, Rogeaux, & Delarue, 2005;
Boutrolle et al., 2007; Hersleth, Mevik, Næs, & Guinard, 2003; King,
ET AL.
Weber, Meiselman, & Lv, 2004; Meiselman, Johnson, Reeve, & Crouch,
2000), it was hypothesized that higher overall liking ratings would gen-
erally be observed in the more realistic testing contexts (REC and ACT)
and that the hedonic discrimination within a meal type would be
improved in these contexts.
A second aim was to explore possible differences in consumers’
JAR ratings after consumption of the complete meal under either the
normal pressure condition (REC) or the low pressure condition (ACT). It
was hypothesized that the majority of the observed JAR ratings would
be significantly different between those two conditions because of
changes in taste perception that are thought to be caused by low pres-
sure conditions.
2 | METHODS
2.1 | Participants
For the laboratory and the re-created airplane context study, consum-
ers were recruited via the database of Wageningen Food and Biobased
Research. They were invited to participate in a consumer study with
warm, ready-made meals. All participants met the following criteria:
minimum age of 18 years, not suffering from food allergies, not on a
prescribed diet, having traveled on an airplane at least once within the
last 10 years, and with a good command of the Dutch language. Of the
242 consumers that participated, 35.6% were male and 64.4% were
female (mean age 56, range 18–79 years). All the consumers who took
part in the LAB and REC studies signed an informed consent and
received a monetary fee for participation after completion of the stud-
ies. For the actual airplane study, passengers were recruited on board
an airplane. After they signed the informed consent, they received the
onboard meal free of charge. Two hundred twenty-two passengers
participated; they were a minimum of 18 years old, not suffering from
food allergies, and not on a prescribed diet. Of these, 46.6% were male
and 53.4% female (mean age 51, range 19–75 years). Table 1 provides
more details on their characteristics. The study was approved by the
Social Science Ethics Committee of Wageningen University and
Research Centre, The Netherlands.
2.2 | Food samples
Two commercially available top sellers were selected from a broader
range of airplane meals: a chicken curry rice dish (meal type A) and a
pasta bolognese dish (meal type B). For each meal type, two variants
were selected that were produced by two different commercial air-
plane meal producers according to their own recipe (variant 1 and vari-
ant 2). The meals were heated in a pre-heated oven at 1008C for 45
min.
2.3 | Procedure
2.3.1 | Study 1: Laboratory context (LAB)
Study 1 is the standard method used by companies to study the overall
liking of meals. The study in the LAB context lasted approximately 25
HOLTHUYSEN ET AL. | 3 of 8

TA BL E 1 General characteristics of the participants in both studies: means (SD) or %

LAB and REC ACT p value

Sample size (n) 242 222

Male 35.6% 46.6% .018

Female 64.4% 53.4%

Age (year) 56.3 (16.3) 51.4 (13.4) .001

Travel frequency .001

A few times a year 36.1% 44.5%
Once a year 39.5% 37.3%
Once every 2–3 years 23.1% 14.5%
Less than once every 3 years 1.3% 3.6%

Buy meal on board .161

Every flight 6.7% 8.6%
Almost every flight 13.8% 13.6%
Occasionally 34.3% 38.6%
I have never bought a meal on board 45.2% 39.1%

min and was conducted at the Rijn IJssel vocational college, Wagenin- were asked to rate the same hedonic question as before, in addition
gen, The Netherlands. At the beginning of the laboratory session, the they had to rate a few sensory attribute questions on a JAR scale (i.e.,
consumers were asked to indicate whether they would prefer to eat a satiated assessment [REC2]).
rice or a pasta dish. Consumers with a preference for one of the meal
2.3.3 | Study 3: Actual airplane context (ACT)
types (pasta vs. rice dish) received the meal type of their choice. If con-
sumers expressed no preference between the two meal types, the The study in the ACT context was conducted on board a Dutch airliner
researchers made the selection on the basis of availability. Whether during a regular, round-trip Amsterdam–Tenerife flight (March 15,
the consumers received variant 1 or variant 2 of the selected meal 2014). Normally, during this flight, a buy on board service is in opera-
type was randomly allocated and not communicated to the consumer. tion. Passengers who were both willing and eligible to participate in the
The consumers were individually seated in a laboratory setting and study were offered one of the airplane meals free of charge. The pas-
were asked to assess a few bites of one of the four meals presented in sengers were asked to indicate whether they would prefer to eat a rice
a small polystyrene cup with a random three-digit number. The con- or a pasta dish and, as long as both meal types were available, their
sumers were asked to taste the meal and to evaluate overall liking, on a wishes were met. If consumers expressed no preference, the research-
100 mm horizontal visual analogue scale (VAS) with the verbal anchors ers made the selection on the basis of availability. After completion of
“very little” and “very much” placed at 10% and 90% on the scale. the meal, the passengers received the same questionnaire as the con-
sumers in REC2 had received.
2.3.2 | Study 2: Re-created airplane context (REC1 and
Table 2 provides a schematic overview of the three studies and
REC2)
gives an overview of the number of completed evaluations per meal
The REC study lasted approximately 50 min and was conducted at Rijn type in the different contexts.
IJssel, Wageningen, The Netherlands. The consumers were told that a
flight to Tenerife was going to be re-created as part of the research on
ready-made airplane meals and, each individual received a boarding
pass and hand luggage. Shortly after, they entered a special room with
a re-created part of an airplane with 16 passenger seats (see Figure 1).
A flight attendant assisted them during the boarding. After they were
seated and their luggage was stored, a voice tape was switched on.
The tape started with the usual safety instructions (recorded by a real
flight attendant) and continued with airplane noises throughout the
test. After 20 min, the participants received a complete portion of the
same meal they had in study 1, in its original package. The meals were
served by a flight attendant on airplane trays together with a cup of
water and airplane cutlery. The consumers were asked to take a few
bites from their meal and to evaluate overall liking, (i.e., assessment
after first bite [REC1]). After answering this initial question, they were
asked to eat their meal until satiated. On completion of the meal, they FIGURE 1 Photo re-created airplane setting
4 of 8 | HOLTHUYSEN ET AL.

TA BL E 2 A schematic overview of the three studies, including an

overview of the number of completed evaluations per meal type in
the different contexts

Meal type LAB REC1 REC2 ACT

A1 n 5 60 n 5 60 n 5 60 n 5 80
OL OL OL 1 JAR OL 1 JAR

A2 n 5 61 n 5 61 n 5 61 n 5 54
OL OL OL 1 JAR OL 1 JAR

B1 n 5 61 n 5 61 n 5 61 n 5 51
OL OL OL 1 JAR OL 1 JAR

B2 n 5 60 n 5 60 n 5 60 n 5 37
OL OL OL 1 JAR OL 1 JAR F I G U R E 2 Mean (within-subjects) overall liking ratings (6SEM) in

Note. OL 5 overall liking rating; JAR 5 just-about-right rating.

different consumption contexts (LAB, REC1, and REC2)
Note. Overall liking was assessed on a VAS scale running from 1 to
100 mm; different letters indicate a significant difference at p  .05
2.4 | Data analysis
tically differ in their mean overall liking for either meal type A (59.67
First, a within-subject analysis was conducted with a general linear
vs. 55.15) (t(21.540)5119, p 5 .126) or meal type B (55.85 vs. 51.07)
mixed model analysis taking into account a repeated measure. Per meal
(t(21.526)5119, p 5 .130). In the re-created airplane, the two meal
type, significant differences in hedonic rating between LAB, REC1, and
variants significantly differed for both meal types in the initial assess-
REC2, with overall liking entered as dependent variable and situation
ment (REC1): meal type A: 64.2 versus 57.4 (t(22.609)5119, p 5 .010)
entered as fixed factor, were assessed. Consumers’ individual data
and meal type B: 64.3 versus 53.6 (t(23.994)5119, p  .001). In the
were indicated as random factors.
Once the F test indicated a significant difference between the
overall liking ratings, post hoc LSD comparisons were performed to
determine the consumption context in which the ratings differed signif-
icantly from one another.
Second, per consumption context (LAB, REC1, REC2, and ACT),
the significance of hedonic differences between the two variants (1 vs.
2) within one meal type (i.e., rice (A) or pasta (B)) were assessed by
independent sample t tests.
Third, independent sample t tests were conducted per meal variant
to reveal the significance of differences in the hedonic and/or JAR rat-
ings between the satiated meals assessments in REC2 and ACT. A Bon-
ferroni correction was applied, as the statistical analyses were
performed on each of the 28 JAR ratings separately (Armstrong, 2014).
These results were considered significant at a level of p < .0018.
All other significant differences were defined as p < .05. A signifi-
cance level between 0.05 and 0.10 is described as a trend. The data
analyses were performed using SPSS v. 19.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL,
USA).

3 | RESULTS

The mean overall liking scores for the different meals are presented
graphically in Figure 2. For meals A1 (F 5 5.95; df 5 2; p 5 .003) and B1
(F 5 10.47; df 5 2; p  .001), the overall liking was significantly higher
in both re-created contexts (REC1 and REC2) than in the laboratory.
No such difference was observed for meals A2 and B2.
Differences in mean overall liking between variant 1 and variant 2
of meal A or meal B in the different consumption contexts are dis-
played in Figure 3a,b. In the laboratory, the meal variants did not statis-
F I G U R E 3 Differences in mean overall liking (6SEM) between
variant 1 and variant 2 of meal A (a) or meal B (b) in the different
consumption contexts
Note. Overall liking was assessed on a VAS scale running from 1 to
100 mm; n.s. 5 not significant; ~p  .10 *p  .05, ** p  .01,
*** p  .001
HOLTHUYSEN ET AL. | 5 of 8

were observed. Per variant, the scores were either normally distributed
or slightly skewed, ranging from 3 to 9 for the more liked variants and
from 1 to 9 for the lesser liked variants.
The mean overall liking scores for the different meals in the plane
are also presented graphically in Figure 3. The two meal variants dif-
fered significantly in their mean overall liking for both meal type A
(66.7 vs. 57.4) (t(22.488)585.2, p 5 .015) and meal type B (62.1 vs.
45.8) (t(23.657)558.3, p  .001).
Differences in mean overall liking ratings between the re-created
and the actual consumption context are displayed per airplane meal in
Figure 4. No significant difference was observed.
No significant differences were observed between the JAR ratings
in the re-created and the actual airplane context (see Table 3).

FIGURE 4 Difference in mean overall liking ratings (6SEM) per 4 | DISCUSSION

airplane meal between the re-created and the actual consumption
context
Note. Evaluation took place after consumption of the whole meal;
overall liking was assessed on a VAS scale running from 1 to
100 mm; n.s. 5 not significant
satiated assessment (REC2), for the two meal variants of meal type A, a
trend was observed (63.3 vs. 58.8) (t(21.678)5119, p 5 .096), and a
significant difference was observed for meal type B (62.0 vs. 51.9) (t
(23.172)5108, p 5 .002). On visual inspection of the individual liking
scores, no systematic differences in distribution between the variants
In the current study, overall liking and JAR ratings of airplane meals
were explored in different consumption contexts. Specific meals were
less liked in the laboratory context than in the re-created consumption
context. In general, no differentiation on overall liking occurred
between the two tested variants in the laboratory context, whereas
they were significantly differentiated in both the re-created and the
actual airplane context. Mean overall liking ratings in the re-created
context did not differ significantly from the mean overall liking ratings
in the actual airplane context. Surprisingly, no significant differences in

TA BL E 3 Mean JAR ratings (6 SD) between re-created and actual airplane

Meal type A Variant 1 Variant 2

REC2 ACT p value REC2 ACT p value

Taste intensity 20.77 (0.77) 20.44 (0.78) .014 20.25 (0.86) 20.35 (0.73) .498

Fruity 20.57 (0.85) 20.42 (0.90) .346 20.64 (0.80) 20.53 (0.82) .498

Spicy 20.9 (0.86) 20.6 (0.76) .030 20.26 (1.0) 20.22 (0.93) .824

Sweet 20.05 (0.53) 20.09 (0.54) .674 20.03 (0.55) 20.04 (0.44) .958

Bitter 20.15 (0.36) 20.08 (0.45) .305 20.03 (0.37) 20.06 (0.24) .682

Sour 20.27 (0.61) 20.18 (0.47) .347 20.20 (0.55) 20.17 (0.43) .775

Salt 20.22 (0.76) 20.16 (0.61) .640 20.02 (0.74) 20.09 (0.56) .539

Meal type B Variant 1 Variant 2

REC2 ACT p value REC2 ACT p value

Taste intensity 20.36 (0.82) 20.08 (0.60) .037 20.59 (0.93) 20.72 (0.70) .446

Spicy 20.44 (0.83) 20.29 (0.54) .256 20.73 (0.91) 20.57 (0.70) .380

Bitter 20.02 (0.23) 20.06 (0.24) .322 20.08 (0.34) 20.09 (0.28) .989

Sour 20.07 (0.31) 20.06 (0.24) .936 20.07 (0.52) 20.09 (0.29) .834

Salt 0.30 (0.82) 0.14 (0.75) .295 0.14 (0.78) 20.09 (0.56) .114

Mushroom 21.11 (0.92) 20.85 (0.86) .130 21.20 (0.74) 20.91 (0.95) .103

Tomato 20.34 (0.79) 20.33 (0.71) .940 20.58 (0.91) 20.74 (0.78) .370

Note. Significant, p  .0018.

6 of 8 | HOLTHUYSEN
JAR ratings were observed between the re-created and the actual air-
plane context.
Food evaluations in natural eating situations may differ from evalu-
ations in controlled eating situations (Meiselman, 1992). The current
study’s observed lower hedonic ratings for some of the meals in the lab-
oratory context are in line with a number of previous studies (Boutrolle
et al., 2005, 2007; Hersleth et al., 2003; King et al., 2004; Meiselman
et al., 2000). However, there are also studies in which a reverse relation
has been observed (Daillant-Spinnler & Issanchou, 1995). Several possi-
ble explanations for these observed context-dependent differences in
the size of hedonic ratings have been suggested. First, clear differences
often exist in the amount of food sampled between lab and field con-
texts, and this is deemed especially relevant in the assessment of main
dishes (de Graaf et al., 2005). At first sight, this difference in consumed
sample size might also have contributed to the difference in the ratings
observed between the laboratory context and both the re-created and
the actual airplane context. However, in the re-created airplane context,
two measures were taken (REC1 vs. REC2), and the differences in
ratings were already manifest after the initial assessment (REC1). Thus,
it seems unlikely that the actual amount consumed is the driving factor
behind this difference. Second, it has previously not been completely
ruled out that differences in ratings in different testing contexts are at
least in part caused by actual differences in the populations from which
the consumer sample is drawn (de Graaf et al., 2005). Lab tests, for
example, might draw on more experienced assessors who have actively
enrolled in a database or responded to an advertisement, whereas sam-
pling in field contexts often occurs on the spot and might draw on
assessors with a lesser general food involvement.
Third, Boutrolle et al. (2007) assumed that more naturalistic eval-
uation conditions might favorably improve the mood of the partici-
pants and that therefore their overall liking ratings might increase. In
the current study, the increase in hedonic ratings was already
observed in the re-created airplane context, implying that this semi-
real-life context must already have been beneficial for the general
mood of the study participants. In line with this argument, during the
debriefing, several participants spontaneously mentioned a “holiday
feeling” (personal communication, Milou Vrijhof). Finally, social inter-
action is known to play an important role in the consumption of foods
(Berry, Beatty, & Klesges, 1985; de Castro et al., 1990). In the current
laboratory test, social interaction was minimized, whereas, in the re-
created and the actual airplane context, social interaction took place,
and this social interaction might in turn have influenced the expressed
overall likings.
Consumption-context-dependent differences were also observed
in the hedonic discrimination between the two variants of the same
meal type. In both the re-created and the actual airplane context, the
two variants were hedonically discriminated, whereas they were not in
the laboratory context. Several possible explanations for this observa-
tion come to mind. It has been reported that the discrimination of
products may be strongly dependent on the chosen methodology
(Calvin & Sather, 1959; McDaniel & Sawyer, 1981) and that first
impressions do not predict preferences after repeated exposures
ET AL.
€ ster & Mojet, 2007). For example, in the
(Kinnear & de Kock, 2011; Ko
current study’s laboratory test, the hedonic ratings were derived after
one brief product exposure to a small amount of the meal. However, in
the two other consumption contexts, consumers were either visually
exposed to (initial assessment in the re-created airplane context) or had
repeated taste exposures while consuming (satiated assessment in the
re-created and the actual airplane context) a full serving size and evalu-
ating the meal. Second, de Graaf et al. (2005) reported that the predic-
tive ability of laboratory ratings also depends on the type of food being
assessed. They assumed that lab ratings were more relevant for snacks
than for complex products such as meals. Therefore, the airplane meals
in the current study might require presentation and/or consumption in
a realistic portion size to produce relevant hedonic ratings. Third, it
may also be plausible that, during a laboratory test, participants feel
somewhat bored and less engaged (Bangcuyo et al., 2015) and that this
in turn contributes to the poor differentiability and predictability of this
€ster, 2009). Fourth, since group
kind of consumer-generated data (Ko
sizes are quite small in the current study we cannot completely rule out
that between group differences (or non-differences) observed between
re-created airplane and actual airplane may have to be attributed to
variability in the population samples and perhaps lack of power. Over-
all, these various explanations could be underlying reasons for the
differences observed in the current study in hedonic product discrimi-
nation between the different consumption contexts. The observed JAR
ratings did not differ between the re-created and the actual airplane
context. This finding is somewhat surprising. Higher taste thresholds
and reduced odor and taste intensity perceptions have previously been
reported under lower pressure conditions (Burdack-Freitag et al.,
2011). However, it has clearly not been possible to mimic the physio-
logical factors that are thought to be responsible for raising taste
thresholds—such as reduced atmospheric pressure, low humidity, and/
or magnetic-field exposure—in the re-created airplane context. One
possible explanation could be attributable to methodological differen-
ces. In Burdack-Freitag’s (2011) study, assessors rated four similar ver-
sions of a menu semi-monadically; this is in itself a somewhat unnatural
task for consumers that in turn might lead to an overestimation of the
hedonic implications of perceptual differences between foods. In con-
trast, in the current study—in line with actual consumer behavior during
a flight—each consumer assessed only one meal and was thus unable
to focus on perceptual differences between several meals. Thus, a
change in sensory perception due to lower pressure conditions might
not lead immediately to a preference for flavor-enhanced meals—at
least not on short distance flights were physiological impacts such as
actual dehydration and consequently a craving for salty foods is limited.
As no differences in overall liking were observed between REC2 and
ACT in the current study, it seems possible that, previously, the impor-
tance of actual sensory perception in the mouth for human food liking
on board an airplane has been overestimated. This observation war-
rants further research, ideally with the same participants in the same
airplane—both on the ground and in the air.
The study has strengths as well as weaknesses. A strength is that
the subjects could choose between a chicken curry rice dish (meal
HOLTHUYSEN ET AL.
type A) and pasta bolognese dish (meal type B), hence in the current
study, individual choices are taken into account which adds to the
naturalistic nature of the experiment. In the design of the experiment
it was decided that the same subjects who participated in the REC
test, first participated in the LAB test and that not counterbalancing
was done between these two tests among the participants. On one
hand, this avoided that participants that first conducted the test in
REC could transfer their contextual experience into the LAB test. On
the other hand, it cannot completely ruled out that this might have
systematically biased the results of the LAB test due to the occur-
rence of first-order effects. This demonstrates a clear dilemma inher-
ent to context research and should be looked at systematically from
a methodological point of view in future research to define a stand-
ard “way of working” in context testing. The absence of an additional
LAB measure after consumption of a complete meal can be seen by
some as a missed opportunity in the current study, as it would have
enabled us to also assess potential validity enhancing effects of
repeated measures in a lab setting (Kremer, Shimojo, Holthuysen,
€ ster, & Mojet, 2013). From a statistical point of view, a within-
Ko
persons design that extended to the actual airplane context would
have been even more powerful. However, for practical reasons, this
was not possible. Unfortunately, on the return flight, a school group
with children under the age of 18 was on board, and these were not
eligible to participate in the research for ethical reasons. Conse-
quently, this reduced somewhat the observations for meal type B,
variant 2. Still, it was possible to collect in all three studies enough
observations with an adequate sample size. Between the two con-
sumer groups (group 1: LAB and REC; group 2: ACT), some statisti-
cally significant differences existed (i.e., gender distribution, average
age, and travel frequency). Therefore, it cannot be completely ruled
out that these differences in general characteristics of the partici-
pants might have had some impact on the results of the current
study. However, as in the current study fairly similar results were
observed for both participant groups, one could also question the
ecological validity of the observed differences in general characteris-
tics between the two participant groups.
5 | CONCLUSION
In summary, the re-created airplane context produced liking results
more similar to the actual airplane context than the traditional labora-
tory context did. Supra-threshold differences in sensory perception
under normal and lower pressure conditions and their relevance for
actual food/meal liking on board an airplane might have previously
been overestimated. Consequently, sensory consumer testing in re-
created airplane contexts may offer a cost-efficient alternative to
extensive sensory consumer testing in real-life contexts.
ACKNOWLEDG MENTS
The authors would like to thank the Rijn IJsel vocational college in
Wageningen for giving us the opportunity to conduct the study in
their training facility. We would also like to thank Louise den Uijl for
| 7 of 8
the fruitful discussions we had during the writing of this article; and,
last but not least, Jim Groot and Joost Snels for their collaboration
in this project. The DLO/TNO 2013 Topsector Agri&Food, the
Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture, and Innovation
funded the research.
All authors of this research article have directly participated in
the planning, execution, or analysis of this study. All authors of this
article have read and approved the final version submitted. The con-
tents of this manuscript have not been copyrighted or published
previously. There are no directly related manuscripts or abstracts,
published or unpublished, by any authors of this article.
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How to cite this article: Holthuysen NTE, Vrijhof MN, de Wijk
RA, Kremer S. “Welcome on board”: Overall liking and just-
about-right ratings of airplane meals in three different consump-
tion contexts—laboratory, re-created airplane, and actual air-
plane. J Sens Stud. 2017;00:e12254. https://doi.org/10.1111/
joss.12254