Howard Moskowitz

Howard R. Moskowitz (born 1944 or 1945^[1]) is an American market researcher and psychophysicist. He is known for the detailed study he made of the types of spaghetti sauce and horizontal segmentation. By providing a large number of options for consumers, Moskowitz pioneered the idea of intermarket variability as applied to the food industry.^[2]

Products

After graduating from Harvard, Moskowitz was hired by the United States Army to improve their Meals, Ready-to-Eat, where he applied the concept of sensory-specific satiety, the tendency for consumers to tire of strongly flavored foods, to ensure that the meals were formulated in a way that encouraged soldiers to eat sufficient calories.^[3]

Since at least the 1980s,^[4] Moskowitz has been consulted by Campbell Soup, General Foods, Kraft and PepsiCo for his expertise in food optimization. According to Moskowitz he has optimized soups, pizzas, salad dressings, and pickles in his work for various firms. His research on Prego spaghetti sauce, which revealed a significant customer preference for an "extra-chunky" formulation, is notable as was his optimization of the amount of salt, sugar, and fat in spaghetti sauce at the "bliss point" which maximized consumer satisfaction.^[5]

Moskowitz developed Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper when he was hired in 2004 by Cadbury Schweppes, which was hoping to expand the market for Dr Pepper by developing a product line extension using an alternative formulation with vanilla or cherry flavors.^[4]^[6]

References

^ Gladwell, Malcolm (4 May 2012). "What Does Spaghetti Sauce Have To Do With Happiness?". NPR. Retrieved 15 May 2025.
^ Gladwell, Malcolm (2009). What The Dog Saw. Little, Brown and Company. p. 432. ISBN 978-0-316-07584-8.
^ Michael Moss (February 20, 2013). "The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food". The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved March 1, 2013.
^ ^a ^b Moss, Michael (2013-02-20). "The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
^ "How The Food Industry Helps Engineer Our Cravings". NPR. Retrieved February 19, 2023. And it's Howard who coined the expression "bliss point" to capture that perfect amount of sweetness that would send us over the moon, their products flying off the shelf.
^ Vanhemert, Kyle. "How Junk Food Is Engineered To Be Hopelessly Addicting".

External links

TED Talk about Howard Moskowitz by Malcolm Gladwell, February 2004
Gladwell, Malcolm (4 September 2004). "The Ketchup Conundrum". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2 February 2013.

[1] Gladwell, Malcolm (4 May 2012). "What Does Spaghetti Sauce Have To Do With Happiness?". NPR. Retrieved 15 May 2025.

[2] Gladwell, Malcolm (2009). What The Dog Saw. Little, Brown and Company. p. 432. ISBN 978-0-316-07584-8.

[NYTMag022013-3] Michael Moss (February 20, 2013). "The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food". The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved March 1, 2013.

[nyt-4] Moss, Michael (2013-02-20). "The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-10-08.

[5] "How The Food Industry Helps Engineer Our Cravings". NPR. Retrieved February 19, 2023. And it's Howard who coined the expression "bliss point" to capture that perfect amount of sweetness that would send us over the moon, their products flying off the shelf.

[6] Vanhemert, Kyle. "How Junk Food Is Engineered To Be Hopelessly Addicting".

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