**4. Conclusions**

This study demonstrated that changing the surrounding environment had a significant effect on participants' hedonic ratings of beef and chocolate. Specifically, we showed that an immersive VR environment tended to induce a positive hedonic response, when compared to a traditional sensory booth setting. Beef was rated as significantly higher for all sensory attributes when consumed in the VR restaurant. For chocolate, the VR countryside

context generated significantly higher hedonic scores for flavour and overall liking in comparison to the sensory booth. In general, the VR countryside setting produced the highest liking scores for chocolate. This study also demonstrated that the perceived effort to assess food samples was not significantly impacted by using VR technology, although the surrounding VR environment was more distracting, in comparison to the sensory booths. Overall, this research enhances our understanding of how different environments, simulated using VR technology, can impact sensory perception of beef and chocolate. The study also demonstrates how VR technology can be used to evoke contextual information in consumer sensory tests, which is often an expensive and time-consuming task to conduct in a 'real-world' environment. Nonetheless, as studies investigating the application of VR in stimulating the human senses are only beginning to emerge, further research is necessary before the technology can be confidently used to improve the predictive validity of consumer sensory assessments.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, E.C. and C.B.; Data curation, C.B.; Formal analysis, E.C. and C.B.; Funding acquisition, E.C., N.M. and C.B.; Investigation, C.B.; Methodology E.C. and C.B.; Project administration, E.C. and C.B.; Resources, E.C. and C.B.; Software, C.B.; Writing—original draft, E.C. and C.B.; Writing—review & editing, E.C., N.M. and C.B. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** The authors acknowledge the contribution of Meat Technology Ireland (MTI) a co-funded industry/Enterprise Ireland project (TC 2016 002). The authors also received internal funding from Teagasc.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** The sensory trials were conducted in accordance with the guidelines for ethical and professional practices for the sensory analysis of foods as set out by the Institute of Food Science and Technology and the American Meat Science Association.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from all participants involved in the study.

**Data Availability Statement:** The data presented in this study is available on request from the corresponding author.

**Acknowledgments:** Authors would like to thank Cormac McElhinney and Michael Whelan and for their assistance, to Cristina David, Jennifer Zeng and Chris Ovenden for their help with running the trials, to all the staff and students at Teagasc Food Research Centre who participated in the study, and to Daniel Ekhlas for preparing the graphical abstract.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
