Evaluation of a hedonic scaling method for measuring the acceptability of school lunches by children

Few studies concerning product testing by children have been published, and practically no such studies have been carried out in Italy. The aim of this work was to set up an evaluation card and a procedure to test grading of meals supplied to school refectories by the Municipality of Milan. Children from four second grade classes were selected from two different primary schools, which received meals from the same meal service. The aims of the study were explained to the children involved (88), 7 and 8-year-olds who were trained in the use of scaling. They then provided acceptability scores for a series of first courses, second courses, vegetables and fruits. While it was not difficult to obtain judgements on grading of meals, some problems were encountered in setting up a model that was useful for both a real time evaluation of meals and any changes in meal formulations. Results were processed by Analysis of Variance, and comparable grading assessments were obtained from the four grades. No significant differences were found in most formulations between the two schools.