How Did We Select the Best Words?

We used data from thousands of UK research participants to find the words that make 60 plant-based dishes sound most appealing to consumers. This research was done at the University of Glasgow, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. The detailed procedure is as follows:

Step 1: We first selected the 30 most frequently listed words that 1000 UK consumers (all omnivores) used to describe each of 20 popular dishes (e.g., beef burger, roast dinner, pepperoni pizza), giving a total of 600 words. The original study generating these words is published here. 

Step 2: We removed duplicates from these 600 words, which resulted in 117 unique words.

Step 3: We then asked 2,637 UK consumers (all omnivores) to rate these 117 words for how positive or negative they are in relation to 60 plant-based dishes, and how important they are for each of these dishes to be appealing.  

Step 4: We calculated the sum of the valence and importance ratings for each word per participant per dish.  We then calculated the mean scores for each word per dish, and divided this by the standard deviation to account for variability.

Step 5: We then ranked the resulting scores and picked the top 10 words overall, top 10 sensory words, top 10 context words, and top 10 hedonic words to display in the name generator for each plant-based dish (e.g., sweet potato katsu curry).  

The result? A list of the most positive and important words for the appeal of specific plant-based dishes (e.g., sweet potato katsu curry), from the perspective of mainstream consumers who eat meat.