This paper explores the origins of the strikingly high price premia paid fo
r new food products in lab valuation exercises Our experimental design dist
inguishes between two explanations of this phenomenon: novelty of the exper
imental experience versus the novelty of the good, i.e., preference learnin
g-bids reflect a person's desire to learn how an unfamiliar good fits into
their preference set. Subjects bid in four consecutive experimental auction
s for three goods that vary in familiarity, candy bars mangos and irradiate
d meat. Our results suggest that preference learning is the main source of
the high premia, and that novelty of the experimental experience does not i
n itself artificially inflate valuations.