Running head: TASTE QUALITY OF CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

Abstract

Taste quality of chocolate chip cookies was measured, comparing Nabisco Chips Ahoy and Safeway Treasure Chests. Thirty Lewis & Clark College students, faculty and staff members volunteered to participate in the taste testing experiment. The experiment was conducted as a double blind procedure to control experimenter and subject expectations.

Participants were given both brands of chocolate chip cookies but received no knowledge of which cookie brand was presented. The participants rated the taste quality using a seven point scale, ranging from poor taste quality to excellent taste quality. The results indicate that the Nabisco Chips Ahoy were preferred over the Safeway Treasure Chests.

Preference of Chocolate Chip Cookies as a Function of Brand

How often have we deliberated over name brands when purchasing prepackaged treats? Do we opt for lower costing store brand products or do we choose corporate brand names for an assurance of quality in the product? Previous research conducted by Thumin (1962) has shown that identification of a brand was unrelated to regular association with that brand or consumption of the particular product. However, the Thumin experiment informed the subjects of the brands being tested, and this may have confounded the subjects preference of the brand(s) that was/were most familiar. Also, taste quality of these products was not considered as a point of identification. It is proposed that taste quality is a determining factor of product consumption. The current study investigated whether taste quality (with an emphasis on flavor satisfaction) of chocolate chip cookies differed between a corporate name brand (Nabisco Chips Ahoy) and a store brand (Safeway Treasure Chests). Kinzer, Higman and Laffey hypothesized that Chips Ahoy would receive a higher taste quality score than Treasure Chests.

Method

Thirty volunteers served as participants in the taste testing experiment. The sample of participants consisted of Lewis & Clark students, staff and faculty. Everyone passing by the Lewis & Clark Bookstore on Tuesday, October 5, 1999 from 10:00-11:00 AM was asked to participate. Other than the opportunity to help Lewis & Clark College psychology methodology students, no incentive was given to induce people to volunteer. The volunteers were asked to sign a consent form before participating in the experiment.

The two cookie brands, Safeway Treasure Chests and Nabisco Chips Ahoy, were placed into two separate brown paper bags by one experimenter, with the other experimenters being blind as to which brand of cookie was in each bag.

The instructions given to each of the 30 participants were as follows:

The presentation of cookies was random for the first participant, and the order alternated for each successive participant. This counterbalanced the procedure by ensuring that 15 participants would taste Chips Ahoy first, followed by Treasure Chests, and the other 15 participants would taste Treasure Chests first and then Chips Ahoy. Participants were asked to eat as much of the cookie as was necessary in order to make a judgment on taste quality. They were also asked to drink enough water to fully erase the taste of the first cookie they tasted.

Results

As predicted, the Safeway brand (M = 3.3, SD = 1.493) was not as well liked as the Nabisco brand (M = 4.2, SD = 1.440) , t (29) = -2.560, p = .0159. Thus, the data support the notion of brand effecting taste quality.

Discussion

The present study demonstrates that Nabisco corporation produces a better tasting chocolate chip cookie than does Safeway. The Chips Ahoy, on average, received a higher taste quality score than the Treasure Chips. It can be concluded with 95% accuracy that participants did notice higher taste quality in the Nabisco Chips Ahoy than the Safeway Treasure Chests. Whereas the Thumin article reported that subjects apparently needed a little experience with a product in order to identify that particular product, the current study suggested that taste quality is a medium of consumer satisfaction. Thus, although consumers may be familiar with comparable brands of products, they prefer one brand over the other based on preference of taste. In the current study, the corporate brand was preferred over the store brand.

Due to the double blind procedure, scores were based solely on the participants responses since the participants did not use brand name information nor were they influenced by expectations of the researchers. In addition, the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (1994) was used to ensure correct procedural methods in recording and reporting the data of this experiment.

Within the current study’s framework, the data may be somewhat unrepresentative of preferred cookie taste. Many participants had just come from eating, thus there is a possibility that the remnant taste of whatever a participant had been eating effected the taste of the cookies. Also, the appearance of the cookies was slightly different, and this difference may account for some error in taste quality response scores since participants could have used tactile cues in evaluating each cookie. Finally, more than one participant was being tested at one time occasionally, and since each participant was required to state the number ranking verbally, this may have influenced the judgments of other participants.

In the future, participants should be asked to drink enough water to get rid of any lingering taste of food eaten prior to the experiment. Also, participants should be blindfolded when taste testing occurs. In addition, participants should be required to secretly write down the taste quality scores so that their individual scores do not effect the scores of other participants.

References

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (4). (1994). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Thumin, Frederick J. (1962). Identification of Cola Beverages. Journal of Applied

Psychology, 46 (5). 358-360.