Integrating consumer and sensory methods to inform product development

Different approaches to consumer and sensory studies can be integrated to provide clearer information for product development, potentially leading to more successful product launches.

When developing new products, it is traditional to use trained sensory panels to evaluate product characteristics. The information they provide is thorough and is considered to be objective, but the approach is expensive, time-consuming and does not express the consumer´s opinion. Therefore, consumers are also used to screen concepts and assess products for liking and preference, with the sensory and consumer datasets being combined in subsequent and detailed analysis.

Rather than using the sensory and consumer approaches independently, an integrated approach would combine the merits of sensory and consumer methods to provide a comprehensive, but quick and cost–effective, procedure for use in the product development process. This member-funded project is evaluating and validating the many new consumer and sensory methods available and giving information on which ones can be used or adapted and integrated for product development work. Following this, it will also investigate different statistical methods for evaluating the data produced by the methods.

Contact: Marleen Chambault
+44(0)1386 842140
marleen.chambault@campdenbri.co.uk