A Review of Color Flavor Interaction in Food and its Application in Food Product Development

Abstract

Humans use all of the senses, especially sight and ortho-nasal olfaction, to create an expectation of what a flavor of a food will be before ingestion. The expectation is confirmed or disconfirmed when the food is placed in the mouth by taste (gustation) and retronasal olfaction. Color is an important constituent of sight. Colors that create the correct expectation of a flavor are called “congruent” and colors that create incorrect expectations are termed “discongruent”. Studies have shown that the ability of people to correctly identify flavor is increased considerably if the color is congruent, or expected, with the flavor. Congruently colored foods have been shown to increase the perception of sweetness in beverages, the richness of orange juice, the pungency of salsa, and the richness of chocolate. Incongruent colored foods may create an incorrect perception of the foods flavor, which many consumers find surprising and unpleasant. For that reason, it is usually best to develop foods that are congruently colored. However, there are opportunities to create excitement and other positive benefits from deliberately coloring foods in a discongruent fashion. More research is needed on this topic, especially in the areas of the effect of minor differences of shades of colors in food flavor perception, and how to successfully implement a strategy of discongruence in food product design.