Table 5.

Summary of themes, sub-themes, and illustrative quotes of qualitative findings from post-intervention interviews.

Theme	Sub-themes	Illustrative quotes
Trade-off between sensory and health properties	Blood glucose control motivational factor for consumption	“The motivation will be to help me to control my blood sugar. With this type of food, I think we can live much longer and healthier.” – MG, male, 52 years old “I hope that these modified foods can reduce my sugar level so that I can do away with the medicine that I’m taking.” – A, male, 55 years old
	Perceived improvement in blood glucose levels	“Every time after eating I do my own [glucose] measurement. … The spike is not so high. … Normal foods before this… it spikes very high. [NVSFs] at least sort of keep it in control.” – MH, male, 65 years old
	Color of NVSF associated with health properties	“I am sure that the [fibre-fortified] rice and probably the brown rice is similar in health quality. For the [anthocyanin-fortified] bread you cannot find it.” – MG, male, 52 years old “To me I feel that it’s quite natural in a sense because it’s like made of plant extract, it’s considered healthy.” – MN, female, 35 years old
	Backed by scientific evidence	“I do not have any concerns if I know that given to me that these are good for you. The benefits, and it’s been scientifically based. Then no issue.” – MT, female, 66 years old
	Taste and texture crucial for continued usage	“I do not like [the microfluidic gel noodles], very artificial, when you chew on it, it’s like chewing on plastic.” – L, male, 48 years old “[Fibre-fortified rice] there’s not much difference to the white rice, so it’s very easy to actually accept it.” – MN, female, 35 years old
	Role in diabetes management	“[NVSFs] gives more choice to diabetic patients and also other people who are health conscious. So yeah, I think this is a very good change for everyone.” – MN, female, 35 years old
	Partial adoption	“I probably will not [consume] on a very consistent basis, but as a novelty. As a novelty, you eat it once in a while. It’s not like something that you reach out for.” – J, female, 57 years old
Price and willingness to pay	Expected to cost more	“There’s some certain value-added process in it, and definitely the cost of making all this will be more than the usual staple food. So therefore, I think it’s only fair. I think they need to increase a bit. But in the case of driving this message across, or to increase the sales, they should not start with the higher cost. But eventually the cost has to go up. Because if not, how can we survive all the R&D inside there?” – H, male, 67 years old
	Willingness to pay more for health benefits	“I mean, it really provides health improvement. I do not mind paying a slight premium for that. … I mean if everything else being it’s safe and it’s got a low GI value.” – MT, male, 58 years old “Preferably from consumer’s point of view it really should not be above what is normal to make it affordable, easily available.” – MT, female, 66 years old
	Consideration to lower price for special groups	“Being a senior, the price should be like the basic normal staple food price, just for seniors. Because you know we have got no more income, and it should supplement us.” – MH, male, 65 years old
Modification methods	Smaller sensory changes for NVSFs modified via fortification preferred	“[Anthocyanin-fortified bread] tastes generally like bread anyway, not much difference from any other bread that I’ve tasted.” – H, male, 67 years old “[Fibre-fortified] rice there’s not much difference to the white rice, so it’s very easy to actually accept it.” – MN, female, 35 years old
	Greater sensory changes for NVSF modified via carbohydrate reduction	“I find that [the microfluidic gel noodles] is too hard and even despite the time that I cook it, I put it to boil to ten fifteen, even up to thirty, it’s still very tough. I just cannot bring myself to buy or eat this noodle, even at what cost.” – A, male, 55 years old
Other socio-economic factors for regular consumption	Considerations from family members	“As a family, we eat together the same food for that meal. If not, we’ll have to do two cookings. If I stay alone with my wife maybe it’s ok, two people. The management of the family having a meal together. I think that’s a bit difficult to arrange.” – F, male, 63 years old
	Recommendations need to be provided on ways to consume	“Of course, there must be some suggestions of ways to eat. Maybe they can say, ‘It will be tasty if you put this butter, or you know something’, so that at least people know how to consume it.” – MG, male, 52 years old
	Increase in accessibility	“Now HDB (i.e., apartment) blocks you can have a 24-h vending machine. That will be good. It has to be within easy reach. I mean, you cannot expect an old person to travel for half an hour. They could be at a block you know, a void deck.” – MS, male, 62 years old