The Sensory Analysis of foods plays an important role in the food industry. It is also something that affects us all in our unique relationship with food. Everyone has a different sensitivity to certain tastes and flavours but also the texture and mouth-feel of different foods. When you are preparing food for yourself or other people you are constantly making decisions based on your own perception of food acceptability. Some children and adults can be quite fussy about food and may have a limited range of foods that they will eat. Parents of fussy eaters often experiment with lots of different foods to try and get children to increase their intake of different fruits and vegetables, meat and fish as they grow older. This is the same activity that food product development specialists carry out in their factories to produce the incredible variety of foods that are available in the shops. At home the goal should be to encourage a healthy varied diet. In the food industry manufacturers want to make sure customers keep buying the products on offer because they like the taste and that the new products launched are innovative and exciting.
Most of us undertake simple sensory testing of food without even realising every time we eat something new. In the food industry sensory analysis or testing is carried out in a more formal manipulative way by fully trained assessors, the results recorded using scientific or statistical methods to gain confidence in the results.
Sensory Analysis is defined as being
‘the Scientific discipline used to measure, analyse and interpret reactions to characteristics of foods and materials as perceived through the senses of sight, touch, hearing, smell and taste’
Institute of Food Technologists 1975
Sensory testing
Food companies find ways of accessing consumers for testing in many different ways. At Sainsbury’s head office for example they have a tasting room which is used in an informal way to make sure customers will like what they sell. Before they moved to their new office in High Holborn they carried out formal sensory work involving a lot of report writing and computer analysis. The results they got although carefully analysed didn’t always help decide if a product would actually sell. Participants were selected from head office staff whether they worked in the post room, the computer department or the staff canteen. Nowadays Information collected on Nectar Cards has come to the aid of the sensory team who are able to select consumers (still from within head office) but who regularly buy and eat the products they are testing (such as strawberry yoghurt) and whose feedback gives more reliable results. Sainsbury’s suppliers also carry out their own independent Sensory Analysis. Combined, the results give useful information and help the decision making process.
Sensory testing is used in several different ways
In evaluating new and established products
Maintaining product quality
Assessing shelf life
As an element of New Product Development
Product review and improvement
Quality control
The most commonly used sensory tests are
Difference tests
Paired comparison tests
Triangle tests
Ranking tests
Rating tests
Product profiling
Here are some examples of how Sensory tests are used in the food industry
The supplier of margarine to a food retailer says they have a new recipe margarine which is superior to the one they currently sell for baking. The only snag is that it will cost 30p more per 500g to sell. To justify changing the existing product the buyer gets one of the company development chefs to bake three identical cakes using
- a) the new margarine;
- b) the existing product;
- c) a branded product.
The cakes are presented to the supplier in a blind tasting for him to identify the margarine he is suggesting they sell for a higher price on the basis that it tastes much better. None of them can identify the cake made with the new margarine. On this basis the buying team decide not to change the margarine for sale. This is a triangle test.
Developing a ready meal
A manufacturer of Italian ready meals has been asked to present samples for the launch of a new spicy sausage pasta sauce based on a recipe in a cookbook from a famous restaurant in London. The original recipe has a lot of chilli flakes in it. The chefs make up five samples of the sauce with varying levels of chilli in them to see which one the buying team finds the most acceptable. For this type of work you would use a ranking test.
Me too product development
A supplier has been asked to copy a competitor’s product. They have been asked to make sure that the sample they present is as good as if not better than the product they want to match. The development team first sample the product and identify using the label exactly what ingredients have been used. Their knowledge of food, cooking and manufacturing will help them here. 3-5 samples will be presented to the team.
Food suppliers are often asked by retailers to copy a branded product. This may be; a chilled soup, biscuits or a ready meal. The product they want to copy will become their bench mark. They will want it to taste as good as if not better than the one that is to be copied. To find out if they are successful the product will be subject to sensory analysis. Once the manufacturer is happy with the recipe they have developed they will carry out the test. The buying team will prefer a result that shows that the new recipe is liked the most out of the samples presented but may be happy with a result that shows no significant difference between their proposed product and their benchmark.
Although sensory tests are very useful they are only an indicator of whether a product will be accepted and liked by consumers. They are used as part of the decision making process and rarely alone.
Pupils at Key Stage 3 will gain a better understanding of the value of sensory analysis if they can be used to introduce some useful concepts.
Here are some sensory tests that will help stimulate discussion about healthy eating and food quality. Ingredients have been chosen for their popularity and
The Biscuit test challenge
You can buy low fat versions of some popular tea time favourites. Compare the nutritional labels to see how much lower fat they really are see if pupils can ‘taste the difference’?
Download the biscuit test challenge here
The pasta sauce comparison
Many pupils like tomato pasta sauce. Making your own doesn’t take much longer than opening a jar and if you have a good recipe it not only tastes great but can also save you money. More importantly you can be in control of how much sugar, salt and oil and what seasoning is in your sauce. Split the class into teams set up the taste panel and see which sauce wins. Stimulate discussion about healthy eating by looking at the ingredients list and by comparing the price. The samples can be presented blind or labelled.
Download the pasta sauce comparison here
Active Kids Get Cooking 2007