Glass vs. plastic: Affective judgments of food packages after visual and haptic exploration

Although the use of plastic in packaging has largely increased, consumer research consistently indicates that consumers attach a high quality perception to glass packaged products. The goal of this study was to examine individuals’ recognition and affective judgments of 30 food packages after visual and haptic exploration. We included packages of three food products that are more often packaged in glass (wine, honey, chocolate cream) and three products that are usually plastic packaged (yogurt, milk, juice). For each product, five packages were used: a glass package; a transparent plastic package with a shape similar to the glass package; a transparent plastic package with a shape different from the glass package; a non-transparent plastic package; a plastic package with a very unusual shape. 30 participants were randomly assigned to three conditions: visual, haptic, and visual + haptic exploration. The visual group watched the packages while their eye-movements were recorded, whereas participants of the other two groups were video-recorded and haptic Exploration Procedures were coded. All participants were asked to name each package and to rate how much they liked it. Moreover, they blind tasted 20 products and were asked to judge liking and quality. Participants were unaware that, for each food category, they were tasting the exact same product repeatedly. The results show that pleasantness judgments were higher for glass packages than for plastic packages. Similarly, participants reported to like the products they believed to come from glass packages more than products contained in plastic packages. Unusual shapes required longer visual and haptic exploration, were overall rated as less pleasant and containing the lowest quality products. The implications for packaging material, shape and design are discussed.