Leveraging innovative technologies for designing a healthy and personalized breakfast: consumer perception of three smart cooking devices in the EU

Background: Rapid demographic growth and global population ageing will have profound impacts on food and nutrition. In the long run, the smart appliance industry will reflect the social, technological, and demographic forces around food consumption. This study aims to provide valuable consumer insights about smart home cooking devices for a healthy and personalised breakfast. Methods: Three smart cooking technologies (3D food printing, digital sous-vide cooking and instant dough baking), one ingredient supplier, and a food research centre shared resources to carry out common tasks such as market research and consumer validation tests. Consumers were segmented into four types of households (single, young or consolidated families and senior). An online community (40 participants), nine focus groups, two interviews (8 experts), and one quantitative study (2055 participants) were carried out in Spain, UK, and Germany. Results: Consumer perception of three smart cooking devices in the EU has been explored in-depth. Insights have shown the potential of innovative technologies for designing a healthy and personalised breakfast. A customized, fresh, tasty, nutritious, and healthy 3D printed breakfast bar was developed for senior consumers by using the smart cooking devices. A tasting session with 80 senior Spanish consumers, aged 45 to 75 years, showed that around 56% of consumers increased their acceptance of the new breakfast bar after being informed about its technological, nutritional, and convenient benefits. Conclusions: The findings provided both theoretical and practical insights into the perception of the three smart cooking devices, per type of household and per country. A combination of technologies was used to develop the new breakfast concept for the target group and country with the most positive perception. This study shows how to share resources for gathering information on product attributes, consumer experience, and for validating the new concept with the target group identified via consumer market research.