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When it comes to food, are you the type to jump on a new fad right away while you’re friends wait for your review? Or, do you sit back and wait for others to recommend a new product before you take your first bite?
According to a recent report by The Oxford Research Agency, people who test new food and drink products can be divided into three categories based on how quickly they are to try and adopt the new products.
- Taste Setters: They taste and people follow. Taste setters often read many foodie magazines and watch food-related television programs. Their opinions are often highly respected among their circle of friends or even in larger communities.
- Taste Adopters: These are the people who will try a new food product within a month after release, but only after a recommendation from a celebrity, magazine, or a Taste Setter.
- Taste Followers: This group tends to be fairly slow at adopting new food options and require a recommendation from family or friends to peak their interest and make them change their buying behavior.
The “Question of Taste” report was based on interviews with 1,534 people from across the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany, Brazil and China. Surprisingly, France, a country full of gourmet food, was in the top three of having the least amount of taste setters. However, China and Brazil, where the Internet grapevine can determine the success or failure of a product and where certain brands are less well established, had the highest number of taste setters compared with the other countries.
The national breakdown of taste setters, taste adopters and taste followers from the report:
| UK | France | Germany | Brazil | China | USA | |
| Taste setters | 7% | 9% | 6% | 20% | 13% | 10% |
| Taste adopters | 21% | 17% | 22% | 35% | 39% | 35% |
| Taste followers | 72% | 74% | 72% | 45% | 48% | 65% |
Although I am somewhat considered a taste setter among family members and some friends, in most circumstances, I would consider myself a taste adopter. I’m not quick to jump on any foodie fad before reading about it in a respected news source of a from a taste setter. But, there are times when I just can’t pass up a new product, especially involving chocolate or cheese!
And so, my question to you is, are you a taste setter? If not, what taste category do you fall in?
