Colour and Taste – Sweet and Salty

Wang and Chang studied colours used on popcorn packaging and report that “Four experimental package design colours (red, blue, yellow, and white) and three popcorn tastes (sweet, salty, and tasteless) were used to evaluate whether the pre-tasting and post-tasting evaluations were affected by package colour and product taste.

The results of this study indicated that (1) there is a contrast between expected psychological and actual perceptions and that (2) yellow and red packaging are suitable for a sweet product, blue is suitable for a salty product, and white is suitable for a tasteless product.”

Ching-Yi Wang and Fei-Ya Chang.  “The Influence of Packaging Color on Taste Expectations and Perceptions.”  Color Research and Application, in press, https://doi.org/10.1002/col.22812