Unlock a deeper understanding of your consumers’ flavor experience through our sensory expertise.
How you measure matters
The right intel can mean the difference between a product that flops and one that flies off the shelves. Our sensory experts help you get it right the first time — measuring your consumers’ experience and delivering actionable findings that drive success.
Whatever your challenge, we’ll guide you through the most effective testing and analysis to refine and optimize your flavor strategy.
Sensory evaluation is a scientific discipline used to evoke, measure, analyze, and interpret, human reactions to stimuli as perceived through the senses. This helps provide objective results from a subjective experience. Sensory science is crucial to understanding consumer experience.
Attributes of foods
Food itself maintains many attributes that our senses perceive and translate into one holistic experience: aroma, taste, mouthfeel, and texture predominantly influence Flavor. Appearance and sound also influence the experience.
Sensory Capabilities
Combination testing
Combination testing can include category reviews, optimization, and quantitative and qualitative research to understand the consumer taste experience.
Descriptive analysis
Descriptive analysis uses attributes to describe stimuli and determine to what extent those attributes are manifesting. Flavor and aroma profiling are an example of this.
Acceptance testing
Acceptance testing can involve flavor acceptance surveys, central location testing, home use testing, and essence and wellsense profiling to understand response to a certain flavor or taste experience.
Qualitative research
This research helps gather what consumers think/feel about products. Capabilities include focus groups, qualitative guidance groups, brainstorming, projective mapping, and 1-on-1 interviews
Discrimination panels
Discrimination panels help determine if specific stimuli are similar or different. Testing for this includes tetrad, triangle, 2 AFC, or degree of difference (SQS.
FAQs
Trained panels do not directly predict consumer preference; they objectively measure sensory attributes (e.g., intensity, flavor notes, texture). However, when linked with consumer data through statistical modeling (e.g., preference mapping), trained panel results can help explain and sometimes predict drivers of liking. Predictive accuracy depends on the robustness of the model, product variability, and quality of consumer data.
Yes, when combined with consumer research. Descriptive sensory data can identify which attributes correlate positively or negatively with liking, enabling the development of predictive models. On its own, sensory data describes products; paired with consumer testing, it becomes a powerful tool for forecasting preference trends.
No. Descriptive analysis provides detailed, objective characterization of products, while consumer testing measures acceptance and preference. Both serve different purposes and are complementary; consumer testing remains essential for validating market success.
The optimal test depends on the business objective. Use discrimination tests to detect differences, descriptive analysis to profile products, and consumer tests to assess liking or preference. Clear alignment between the research question, stage of development, and decision criteria ensures the appropriate methodology is selected.
Consumer Market Insights is responsible for gathering data to inform/assess the “vision” (i.e., new product idea/concept, target population, consumer problems to be solved/need states, etc.) while Sensory gathers data to inform/assess the “reality” (i.e., the actual product/stimuli; these can be prototypes in development, existing products in situational contexts, etc.). Sometimes CMI will collaborate with/leverage Sensory to run preliminary testing (using our qualitative tools) to refine concepts, explore ideas/concepts with target populations, etc. If you’re unsure which is better positioned to help you with your research questions, our experts can help point you in the right direction.
Flavor University Podcast Feature Ep 9: The role of Sensory
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