Beth Kimmerle

It is one of the more important, especially, again, for children and babies, because sweet's probably the first, you know, the first taste that babies taste.

Exactly.

And I think what we call those in our industry is what are the expectations and how do those affect how we perceive taste?

So you're talking about large and small.

We oftentimes talk about appearance in terms of size and shape and color.

There's so many different ways we can what we call modulate these expectations.

Because they really prime the brain.

There's a quote that says, we eat with our eyes.

If you think about that in terms of, you're talking about portion control, but we look at how does packaging, how does marketing, how does color or type style or storytelling literally change how something tastes?

And so as researchers, we know that people can rate the same product, the exact same product, higher if the marketing feels more premium.

So their expectation is elevated, and they like that product better.

Or even consumers, if something doesn't feel authentic or if they notice it's broken,

meaning have you ever gotten a cracker or a cookie out of a package and it's not whole, then that will shift your perception.

Well, it doesn't taste as good.

Yeah, and that's that interesting thing about how you had repeated exposure, right?

At some point, you drank a lot of soda and you had the social context or experience that trained your palate to think that that was a good thing.

And then at some point, whether it was the social context, learning how much sugar is actually in a traditional soda,

or seeing people around you drink alternatives, right?

Again, you know, our tastes can change and that has to do with sort of this learned information.

And then sometimes