Does the Information Regarding the Ingredients Composing a Dish Influence Consumers’ Decisions? An Evaluation in a Restaurant

ABSTRCTStudies have shown that information about a food product influences how the product is perceived. In a restaurant, when giving the menu to the patrons, the waitress was instructed to suggest a dish and to describe or not the ingredients used. A control condition where the suggestion for the dish was written on a slate propped up on the table of the patrons was also introduced. Results showed that adding a description of the ingredients used to compose the dish led the customers to order the target dish more often than when only the name of the dish was suggested verbally, or the name was just printed. These results were confirmed by a second study conducted in a survey setting where we also observed that the description of the dish did not change their perceptions of the waitress. These results suggest that simply describing a dish increases its attractiveness.