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Consumers’ emotional evaluation of food products has gathered interest among sensory scientists and food companies as a means to gain additional insights beyond hedonic measurements. While recent work shows that emotional profiling can also be performed with children and teenagers, concerns have been raised about the validity of emotional profiling when using traditional questionnaires, especially with children. Emoji have recently been proposed as an alternative approach, but empirical studies with this target group are scarce.

Using 5 different samples of a biscuit (‘speculoos’), this study evaluates the use of emoji for emotional profiling with 149 children (11–13 years old). Overall liking and emotional profiling (with 33 emoji) were assessed for each sample, using the check-all-that-apply approach. Children’s actual food choice was also recorded.

Results showed that, on average, 10% of the emoji were …