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]