Different serving shapes of cooked jasmine rice on a plate affect the consumer's visual preference

This research aimed to investigate how five different serving shapes of cooked jasmine rice (round, square, triangular, flower, and heart shapes) affected visual hedonic preference and consumer perception (n = 100). Cooked rice was placed on a plate without food, the heart, flower, and triangle serving shapes had higher artistic mean scores than the round shape. And cooked rice placed in the shape of a heart on a plate with food had a higher mean score on ‘liking in shape’ than round or square shapes. The findings of this study could be beneficial to food styling, presenting, and catering in the foodservice industry, resulting in increased sales, particularly in restaurants and hotels. Furthermore, for more successful food marketing and advertising, one can use the shapes of a heart as a serving shape for cooked jasmine rice box labels.

Pretty Healthy Food: How and When Aesthetics Enhance Perceived Healthiness

Marketers frequently style food to look pretty (e.g., in advertising). This article investigates how pretty aesthetics (defined by classical aesthetic principles, such as order, symmetry, and balance) influence healthiness judgments. The author proposes that prettier food is perceived as healthier, specifically because classical aesthetic features make it appear more natural. In a pilot, six main studies and four supplemental studies (total N = 4,301) across unhealthy and healthy, processed and unprocessed, and photographed and real foods alike, people judged prettier versions of the same food as healthier (e.g., more nutrients, less fat), despite equal perceived price. Even given financial stakes, people were misled by prettiness. In line with the proposed naturalness process, perceived naturalness mediated the effect; belief in a “natural = healthy” connection moderated it; expressive aesthetics, which do not evoke naturalness, did not produce the effect (despite being pretty); and reminders of artificial modification, which suppress perceived naturalness, mitigated it. Given that pretty food styling can harm consumers by misleading healthiness judgments for unhealthy foods, managers and policy makers should consider modification disclaimers as a tool to mitigate the “pretty = healthy” bias.