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Developing food products for children requires their involvement since their needs differ from those of adults. Descriptive methods are helpful in defining product's sensory properties that drive consumer's liking but they are not recommended with children. Consequently, finding new approaches to develop food tailored for children is one of the biggest challenges for food companies and sensory and consumer research scientists. This study has a twofold aim: (a) to test the suitability of check-all-that-apply (CATA) questions to obtain a sensory description of fiber-enriched apple purees by children; (b) to investigate the drivers of liking of these products. Sixty-two children (8-11 years) evaluated the overall liking of six apple purees varying in appearance and texture and answered a series of CATA questions. Results showed that children were able to generate appropriate descriptive terms and to discriminate the samples according to the a priori modified sensory modalities using the CATA method. Sweet taste and a uniform texture (sandy, doughy, and floury attributes) were positive predictors of apple purees children liking, whereas sour taste, granular and crunchy texture were negative predictors. Practical applications The check-all-that-apply (CATA) method is an appropriate, child-friendly approach to get insights on how young consumers perceive a food product and identify the most relevant sensory attributes that affect children's hedonic perception. The use of CATA technique could be useful for food products research and development to understand children's drivers of liking and to obtain effective input for products optimization that meet children's sensory expectation, assuring product's success with this specific target of consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Variety within a meal is known to increase intake. However, intake of certain food items (e.g. vegetables) in children is consistently below recommendations, and increasing the consumption of such food would lead to health benefits. This study investigated how different levels of food variety influence children's acceptance. A total of 132 children, aged from 9 to 11 years, were exposed to vegetables, fruits and nut snacks during mid-morning break at school. Two different sets of stimuli were used in a within subject design: Classical Variety (CV), i.e. serving of different foods and Perceived Variety (PV), i.e. serving of the same food in different shapes. For each set, three levels of variety in the servings were tested: low, medium, and high. Intake and liking were determined for each serving set. ANOVA results showed that intake of CV set decreased according to the level of variety, whereas results of PV set only showed an increase of liking with increasing levels of variety. Adding more variations of products appeared to be less successful on consumption despite changing the liking of the products, may be because consumption is more affected by acceptability and familiarity for the stimuli than by variety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]