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Sensory Evaluation. Chapter 6. Sensory evaluation panels. Groups of people who evaluate food samples. Three main groups – highly trained experts, laboratory panels, and consumer panels. Their input has a lot of impact on whether a food makes it from the test kitchen to the shopping cart.
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Sensory Evaluation Chapter 6
Sensory evaluation panels • Groups of people who evaluate food samples. • Three main groups – highly trained experts, laboratory panels, and consumer panels. • Their input has a lot of impact on whether a food makes it from the test kitchen to the shopping cart.
1) Highly trained experts • Judge the quality of a product, using standards set by the food industry. • Involved in testing for very complex foods that require their refined, practiced skills, and sensitivity.
2) Laboratory panels • Small groups that work at a company’s laboratory. • Help develop new products and determine how a change may affect the quality of an existing product.
3) Consumer Panel • Some companies use large consumer panels to test foods outside the laboratory • For example: In grocery stores, shopping malls, and at market research firms. • Consumers tell how much they like or dislike a product or one of its flavor characteristics.
Uniform Evaluations • To get the most reliable sensory information from people, researchers must make testing experiences as uniform as possible. • For example: all samples being the same temperature.
Minimize Distractions • Testing takes place in a controlled atmosphere. • Lighting and temperature are always kept the same. • One exception to this practice is the development of a new product, where an effort is made to serve the food as it would normally be eaten.
Minimize bias • Knowing how one sense can affect another, researchers may mask irrelevant characteristics. • Color differences may be hidden by using colored lights • Testers guard against the contrast effect, which can occur when a lesser-quality food is offered right after one of higher quality. • Testers need to understand human psychology in addition to food science.
Help evaluators use their senses to the fullest • Testing often occurs in the morning or midafternoon, when people are most responsive and alert. • Food tasters rinse their mouths with water, between each sample. • Warm water is used to cleanse the mouth of fatty foods. • Eating a bland food, such as a cracker, also clears the taste of the previous sample.
