Smooth or rough? The impact of food packaging design on product healthiness perception

In the existing literature, the relationship between the roughness/smoothness of food packaging surfaces and healthiness perception has not been persuasively concluded. To fill this gap, we combined two objective methods to investigate the effect of smooth/rough packaging on food healthiness perception: Brief Implicit Association Test (BIAT) and Event-Related Potential (ERP). The results of the BIAT demonstrated that participants needed a longer time to make decisions in the block of rough packaging and healthy food (RH task) and the D score was 0.22. Consumers unconsciously perceived the block of smooth packaging and healthy food (SH task) as having a stronger intrinsic association than the RH task. Furthermore, the more positive amplitude trend of the P300 component and the more negative amplitude trend of the late negative component (LNC) were induced in the SH task relative to the RH task. The results of the ERP proved that consumers perceived food inside smooth packaging to be healthier. The findings of this study can guide the design of packaging for healthy foods, and manufacturers should make the surface of food packaging smoother or rougher when appropriate.