In big box stores, supermarkets, and even smaller grocers, food manufacturers’ representatives seem to lurk at the end of every aisle hawking their canape-size samples. But how effective are such strategies at attracting customer purchases and loyalty beyond that day’s free lunch? New research, appearing in the December issue of the Journal of Retailing, has led to a model that assesses the short- and long-term effects of such sampling on sales of both the products offered on sample and competitive products.