Eating with your ears

‘Crunchy’ is just one of the descriptive terms that are increasingly appearing on packaging to entice us to buy products in which this is an appealing attribute. Tools have even been introduced to measure the potential ‘crunchiness’ profile of certain ingredients to help manufacturers choose and replicate the level of crunch that is required.

In fact, sound is the forgotten flavour sense, according to an article entitled ‘Eating with our ears: assessing the importance of the sounds of consumption on our perception and enjoyment of multisensory flavour experiences,’ which appeared in Flavour in March.

Of course, you can tell a lot about the texture of a food – for example, ‘crispy’, ‘crunchy’ and ‘crackly’ – from the sounds heard while biting and chewing it. The article discusses how the latest techniques from the field of cognitive neuroscience are revolutionising our understanding of just how important what we hear is to our experience and enjoyment of food and drink; a growing body of research shows that synchronising eating sounds with the act of consumption can change a person’s experience of what they think that they are eating.

One example describes how some years ago, researchers working on behalf of Unilever asked their brand-loyal consumers what they would change about the chocolate-covered Magnum ice cream. A frequent complaint concerned all of those bits of chocolate falling onto the floor and staining one’s clothes when biting into the ice cream. This feedback was promptly passed back to the product development team who set about trying to alter the formulation to make the chocolate coating adhere to the ice cream better. However, in so doing, the distinctive cracking sound of the chocolate coating was lost. And when the enhanced product offering was launched, consumers complained once again.

It turned out that they did not like the new formulation either. The developers were confused. Had not they fixed the original problem. Nevertheless, people simply did not like the resulting product.

Subsequent analysis revealed that it was that distinctive cracking sound that consumers were missing. It turned out that this was a signature feature of the product experience even though the consumers (not to mention the market researchers) did not necessarily realise it. Ever since, Unilever has returned to the original formulation, thus ensuring a solid cracking sound when biting into ice cream bars.

Another example involved Dutch crisp manufacturer Crocky, which ran an advert that focused on the crack of its crisps; the sound was so loud that it appeared to crack the viewer’s television screen.

You need only to consider how Frito-Lay pitches many of its snacks as ‘crunchy’; Cheetos has used the slogan “The cheese that goes crunch!”; and a Doritos ad rolled out in 1989 featured Jay Leno revealing the secret ingredient – ‘crunch’, to see that chip-related ‘loudness’ is considered an asset. Frito-Lay even conducted research to show that Doritos chips give off the loudest crack.
When developing products and choosing the best ingredients, sound is an element you can’t afford to ignore.

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