Impact of sensory food characteristic on оverall consumers’ satisfaction: testing a structural equation model

Subject of research of this paper is the influence that food sensor characteristics have on the overall
consumers’ satisfaction. A statistically significant difference and direct impact was confirmed on taste, aroma,
appearance and texture of the food on the satisfaction of consumers of the service. The analysis included a total of
185 completely filled questionnaires which were further statistically processed. The sensor characteristics of the
food were measured through taste, aroma, appearance and texture with total of 16 attributes, and the overall
satisfaction with three attributes. Furthermore, the validity of the questionnaire was confirmed with the value of
Cronbach alfa coefficient of 0.892. for the total structure of the model. Structuring equation modeling was used to
determine the impact of the food sensor characteristics on satisfaction of service consumers and with that method the
strength of the relationship between the variables was examined. Moreover, the weighted ration was determined
with a value from 0 to 1. Additionally, the research showed that there is a significant influence from sensor
characteristic on overall customers’ satisfaction with a composite reliability (CR) greater than 0.6, and average
variability (AVE) over 0.6. All regression coefficients (β) of the attributes are statistically important with a value
over 0.6, and the most of the with values over 0.7. The average variability (AVE) which expresses the share of the
determinants variance connected with their latent variable (constructor), for the construct “sensor characteristics” as
well as for the construct “overall satisfaction” is with a value from 0.81 to 0.8. Also, according to the obtained data
from SEM method it is confirmed that the sensor characteristics (taste, aroma, appearance and texture) of the food
have direct statistically significant influence on the overall customers’ satisfaction with a significant regression
coefficient of β 0.76.