Supervisors: Klaus G. Grunert & Liisa Lähteenmäki
Discussants: Marija Banovic & John Thøgersen

Abstract
Snack products generally serve consumers as a spontaneous seduction and are often consumed without much thought. Gratification arises mostly through sensory properties. Adding health-related information to a snack, and thereby repositioning it as healthy, requires additional informational gratification that may or may not be supported by consumer feedback. Based on studies of emotions, customer journey, and food science, this research investigates how informational gratification determines purchase decisions for healthy snack products.

Specifically, study 1 investigates if information related to health properties of snack products evokes sufficient informational gratification pre-1st purchase to help consumers make healthier food choices. Study 2 investigates the interaction of sensory and informational feedback, and how this determines repurchase decisions for healthier snack products. Specifically, this research investigates consumer reaction to different tastes of a snack product emphasizing its healthy aspects.

Many consumer/snack interactions along the customer journey have a low level of conscious awareness, and recent research indicates that explicit reactions mainly reflect sensory properties but not consumer motivations. Therefore, this research complements traditional self-report techniques with physiological measures to increase explanatory power. The aim of this research is to establish a methodology to predict choice of healthy snacks more reliably than a self-report measure alone could do.

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