Job description
We are seeking a highly motivated PhD candidate to investigate how forgotten protein crops can become part of everyday consumer choices. This PhD will explore how product properties, multisensory experiences, recipe context, presentation strategies, and societal associations shape consumer acceptance and decision-making.
Your work will combine sensory perception, eye-tracking, and immersive virtual reality simulations to understand how people respond to meals and products in realistic purchase and dining environments. The project centers on how people look, intend, and choose, and how immersive technologies can help us understand real-life judgment and decision processes
You will work with VR-based supermarket and dining simulations, eye-tracking tools, and behavioral experiments to explore how visual presentation, context, and multisensory cues shape people’s choices.
This research directly contributes to the REAP2SOW mission to accelerate the transition to a sustainable, plant-forward protein system.
Your role
Examine consumer acceptance and purchase intentions for aardaker, white lupin, and quinoa across a variety of dishes, contexts, and product presentation strategies.
Evaluate different presentation styles of aardaker-based dishes, including visual cues, contexts, and formats, to understand how they influence attention, perceived liking, and consumer acceptance.
Build virtual choice environments (e.g., supermarket and social dining simulations) using VR with real-time tracking to analyse consumer decision-making.
Work together with the second PhD in the work package to design and evaluate interventions that promote quinoa, lupin, and aardaker recipes among consumers.
Interact with historians, agronomists, plant breeders, gastronomists, and industry partners to ensure practical relevance and robust implementation of the findings.
Write and submit your findings to scientific journals and as PhD dissertation.
Department
You will be embedded in the Cognition, Data and Education (CoDE) group at the University of Twente, an interdisciplinary group that studies cognition, perception, behaviour, and technology-supported behavioural change.
You will also collaborate closely with the Marketing and Consumer Behaviour Group at Wageningen University, one of the leading centres worldwide in consumer behaviour and food choice.
This NWA-funded PhD is part of the REAP2SOW programme, a national consortium involving Wageningen University & Research, Utrecht University, Leiden University, the University of Twente, and the University of Groningen, alongside partners in the agri-food sector. REAP2SOW aims to support the transition toward a sustainable plant-based protein system by 2050.
Your work will be part of the REAP2SOW consumer work package, consisting of two PhD positions collaborating on recipes, narratives, and interventions that encourage consumer adoption of sustainable protein crops. Your role will focus on societal embedding and perceptual/behavioural evaluation, while the paired PhD focuses on consumer motives and narratives. Together, you will develop shared interventions and recommendations.