Linking product offering to consumer needs; inclusion of credence attributes and the influences of product features

The Quality Guidance Model was extended beyond sensory properties to include credence motivations like healthiness, environmental friendliness, naturalness, and safety. This Extended Quality Guidance Model was built and tested to explain consumer preferences from consumer perceptions, expert sensory judgments, and metabolite features of tomatoes. The different type of features (sensory, technical, and consumer perceptions) made it possible to explore the actionability of the features in predicting consumer preferences both in-store and upon consumption. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.