SEASONALITY AND THE ALGEBRA OF FOOD PREFERENCES REVEALED THROUGH PRODUCT CONCEPTS H.R. MOSKOWITZ 1,3 and J. BECKLEY 2 1 Moskowitz Jacobs Inc. 1025 Westchester Ave., White Plains, NY 10604 2 The Understanding and Insight Group 3 Rosewood La., Suite 103, Denville, NJ Accepted for Publication March 17, 2008 ABSTRACT Four sets of respondents participated in conjoint studies designed to identify the statements that drive ratings of “craveability.” Two studies dealt with chocolate candy, two studies dealt with ice cream. Each conjoint study comprised 36 elements combined into 60 unique combinations and was run on the Internet. Both pairs of conjoint analysis studies were run first in the summer and then in the winter, among separate groups of respondents. For the total panel, the utility values for the individual concept elements were quite similar by season, suggesting no seasonality effects. Segmentation of respondents into groups based upon patterns of utilities revealed three segments: “Elaborates” (responsive evocative phrases about the food), “Classics” (responsive to state- ments about the food in the traditional sense) and “Imaginers” (responsive to other features such as emotion and brand). Only “Imaginers” showed a strong and intuitively appropriate effect of season. “Elaborates” and “Classics” showed slight, counter intuitive seasonality effects. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS Food preferences deal with food, as well as the context in which it is eaten. This paper presents the utility values of different statements about a food as revealed in a conjoint study, and possibly, as influenced by seasonality. Food preferences have to be reconsidered, to incorporate the seasonality and other values surrounding food, e.g., ambience, emotion, brand, etc. One of the key outcomes of this study is the repeatability of the results across seasons for different respondents. The results are sufficiently robust to 3 Corresponding author. TEL: 914-421-7408; FAX: 914-428-8364; EMAIL: mjihrm@sprynet.com DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-459X.2008.00195.x Journal of Sensory Studies 24 (2009) 58–77. © 2009, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 58