'Grandma's' label adds zest to yucky foods

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Putting the label "Grandma's" on unappealing vegetables like lima beans or those awful legumes may be the way to lure Americans to eat them, according to the findings of a University of Illinois study.

Illinois researchers found that adding a label like "Grandma's" to restaurant menu items prompted more people to buy the dishes and to rate them as having higher quality and being a better value.

Brian Wansink, a marketing and nutritional science professor, thinks moms may be able to use the same tactic to get kids to eat things that are good for them but generally fall into the category of yucky.

"That's kind of our next step," Wansink said. "We're almost positive that the same thing will work."

In the restaurant study, labels such as "Grandma's Zucchini Cookies," "Tender Grilled Chicken," and "Traditional Cajun Red Beans and Rice" increased sales by 27 percent over the same items labeled simply zucchini cookies, grilled chicken and red beans and rice.

Moreover, customers not only bought increased quantities of the labeled items, they were happier about it and more likely to return as a result.

"People thought it looked better; they thought it tasted better; they felt it had more calories" and they felt fuller, said Wansink, who did the study with James Painter, an Illinois nutritional science professor, and researcher Koert Van Ittersum.

"It was the exact same stuff," he said. "All we did was change a little bit of the description."

Wansink and colleagues came up with the idea for the study after a previous test involving candylike energy bars containing soy protein. In that study, they found consumers rated the bars as tasting better if they were labeled as containing "protein" instead of "soy protein." The word "soy" influenced taste perception, even though there was no actual difference.

For the food study, they came up with labels in three categories; geographic, such as Cajun and Southwestern; nostalgic, such as Grandma's and homestyle; and sensory, such as tender and succulent.

Over six weeks in the university's Bevier Hall cafeteria, they tested whether "Satin Chocolate Pudding" and "Homestyle Chicken Parmesan" would do better than their label-less counterparts.

Only after they selected a test item and paid for it were cafeteria customers asked to complete a survey on its quality and how satisfying it was when they finished eating.

In every case, the labeled items were rated higher than the non-labeled items, clearly showing a "power of suggestion over senses," Wansink said.

One thing customers didn't say they would do is pay more for the labeled items, however.