ORIGINAL ARTICLE Consumer preferences for burgers and milk desserts: Evaluating the importance of health claim attributes Mayra Monteiro Viana 1,2 | Yana Jorge Polizer Rocha 3 | Marco Antonio Trindade 3 | Solange Alfinito 1 1 Department of Business Administration, University of Brasilia, Brasília, Brazil 2 Sebrae, Brasília, Brazil 3 College of Animal Science and Food Engineering, University of S~ ao Paulo, FZEA/ USP, Pirassununga, Brazil Correspondence Mayra Monteiro Viana, Department of Business Administration, University of Brasilia, Campus Darcy Ribeiro s/n - Asa Norte, Brasília - DF, Brazil, 70910-900. Email: mayra.viana@alumni.usp.br Abstract The question that guided this work was if health claims should receive special attention by evaluating if these claims stand as a relevant attribute to consumers. Thereby, the goal of this work is to explore how consumers deal with different food product attributes, including health claims, in frozen burgers (Study 1), and milk des- serts (Study 2) via conjoint analysis (CA). In Study 1, the ranking-based CA revealed that the attribute “Claim” is more relevant than “Price” and that the Claim level of “Source of Fibres” in burgers is rejected by consumers. In Study 2, the rating-based CA also reveals “Claim” as the most valued attribute in milk desserts, and consumers reject the Claim level of “Antioxidants” but are favorable to “Fiber”. As conclusions, the claim is the most important attribute in both cases. Still, while consumers did not respond positively regarding frozen burgers with health attributes, there was a positive asset for milk desserts. Practical Applications The manuscript brings a contribution to the field of food consumer studies by assessing claim attributes in different ways in terms of products, designs, and con- joint methods. The information obtained in this study brings useful insights regarding the importance of claims in consumer preference. One example is the discussions regarding some cautions that food industries should have regarding functional claims, as some levels were rejected in both carriers. Through this study, it is possible to dis- seminate the importance of gaining understandings regarding claims in functional foods, and especially regarding Brazilian consumers. 1 | INTRODUCTION Consumer studies can help to uncover selected aspects of individuals' behavior. Regarding food, one crucial usage of consumer behavior studies is to access individuals' preference for novel food products before launching them (Siró, Kápolna, Kápolna, & Lugasi, 2008; Vincent van Buul & Fred Brouns, 2013). This is particularly important to avoid product failure (Carrillo, Prado-Gascó, Fiszman, & Varela, 2013; Ares Devincenzi, 2009). Different factors can influence consumers' purchase of food products, such as price, origin, and type of product. The attributes that guide the choice may depend on personal, situational, and product characteristics (Hathwar, Rai, Modi, & Narayan, 2012; Leick, Behrends, Schmidt, & Schilling, 2012; Loureiro & Umberger, 2007). This study focuses mainly on the latter, evaluating the consumer pref- erence for foods with different attributes, including claims. This topic has been widely studied, including to support the development of healthier products (Gimenez, Ares, & Gambaro, 2008; Loureiro & Umberger, 2007), but there is still room for further under- standings. There are different findings in the literature on which prod- ucts consumers consider adequate when they are reformulated with the addition of healthy ingredients, for example. The studies report Received: 28 April 2020 Revised: 16 August 2020 Accepted: 19 August 2020 DOI: 10.1111/joss.12615 Journal of Sensory Studies J Sens Stud. 2020;e12615. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/joss © 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC. 1 of 11 https://doi.org/10.1111/joss.12615