FOOD6004015 Sensory Evaluation

Week 1 – Consumer test (part I)

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 Outlines

 Consumer and market research

 Consumer screening
 Questionnaire development

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 Learning Outcomes

After completing this session, students are expected to be

able to:
LO2: outline the principle of various sensory evaluation methods
including descriptive, discriminative and affective testing
LO3: apply an appropriate statistical analysis of various sensory
evaluation methods and interpret the data analysis
LO4: communicate topics on sensory evaluation in relation to its
methodological aspects, food quality control, and consumer preference

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 Market Research

• Gofress
• Entering market with new variant – coffee
• Attracting generation Z + coffee lover 4
 Market Research
• Companies need to keep up to date information about factors
affecting patterns in consumer purchasing
• price;
• consumer preferences;
• availability of and level of demand for products in different areas of the
country
• Product “fashion” or “trends”
• Advertising
• Loyalty to brands/products

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 Market Research
• Market research is needed to “predict” the trend in food and
consumption pattern

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 Market Research
• Example results from market research
• The insights (based on consumer
survey): sustainability aspect become
one of the key of consumer in choose
food in the future
• Trend in food sustainability 
reducing meat consumption to
reduce carbon food print  looking
for more foot print C)2 friendly 
potential to develop from insect
Tortilla chips from crickets
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 Market research
• What we eat in 2030?
• What will be the trend in food
sectors?

• Reading session – 5 minutes, make

a summary note of the report
• Available in your binusmaya
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 Market Research
• Consumer or market research is needed at NPD development stage – in which
sensory evaluation and consumer test may need to be conducted
The NPD process and Steps
1. Idea generation
2. Idea screening
3. Concept development and testing
4. Marketing strategy development
5. Business analysis
6. Product development
7. Test marketing
8. Commercialization

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 The differences between sensory
test and product concept test
Test Characteristic Sensory test Product concept test
Conducted by Sensory Evaluation Marketing research
Department Department
Primary end user Research and Marketing
of information Development
Product labeling Blind-minimal concept Full-conceptual
presentation
Participant Users of product Positive response to
selection category concept

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 The differences between sensory test
and product concept test
• Sensory test and product concept test:
• Consumer including their opinion as center of surveyed (users)

• Differ in amount and type of information; Product Vs. Conceptual features

• Typical question to be
answered in product
concept test

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 Consumer test
• Provide opportunity to determine
consumer acceptability on a sensory basis
• Without any disruption on concepts and
claims that normally appear in packaging
and claims
• Sensory-consumer test can facilitate
diagnosis of problems before more
expensive marketing test
• It can provide direction of re-formulation
if needed

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 Consumer test
• Consumer test can be beneficial for:
• Multiple formulas (samples/benchmarks) can
be compared on a blind-labelled
• Poor performing products can be dropped
from further considerations
• The results can be valuable in defending
challenges from competitor and responding
to the requirement of advertising regulators

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 Consumer test
Some challenges in consumer/market test
• The product never been seen on three-labelled-blind-code in the market
shelves
• Why bother with test using blind-labelled?
• Why need to conduct sensory test while deleting concept products?
•  if the product fails in the marketplace how does know which one is wrong if the only
market concept tested
• Did the product have a good sensory properties
• Did the market responded to the products
• Without market testing ambiguous and the direction to fix the product unclear
• Possibility to create poor product with a catchy marketing concept

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 Consumer test
• Product placement
• Product testing
• Interviewing
• Opinion
• Polling
•  Complicated, expensive and time consuming! (required data
obtained from 300 users, questionnaire design, etc.)
• Required participation from huge consumers

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 Consumer test
Purpose of the test
• Assess the acceptability of a product
• Determine if the product preferred over the other products
• Collect information on the reason behind consumer like and dislike
• Consumer field test:
1. New product entering marketplace
2. A reformulated product (ingredients, packaging, process change, etc.)
3. Entering competitor’s product category for the first time
4. Competitive surveillance

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 Consumer test
• Four major category of consumer test:
1. Employee consumer models
2. Local standing consumer model
3. Central location test
4. Home placement, Home Use Test (HUT)

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 Consumer test
• Employee consumer model
• The consumer group can consist of employees or local residents
• No attempt to insure that the group is representative of consumer at large
• the sample is not necessarily representative of opinions beyond the
delimited geographic area of the club or group

• Local standing consumer model

• the participants may know each other and talk
to each other on a regular basis, so there is no guarantee that the opinions
are completely independent
• Cost-efficient, using local standing consumer panel
• Should be the user of the product category
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 Consumer test
Central location test
• The most popular type of consumer test
• The central location test (CLT) is often conducted in the facilities of
a field testing agency (a service provider)

Home use test

• Testing the product at the most natural and realistic situation (at
home)
• Costly and time consuming
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Type (+)
Internal • Secure
employee panel • Low cost
• Rapid results
Local standing • Reasonably secure
panel • Lower cost
• Easy distribution
Central location • Representatives sample
test • Control over product
preparation
Home use test • Representative sample
• Realistic testing
• Whole family input
• Can test use directions
Consumer test
(-)
• Not representatives
• Not a random sample
• Panellist may discuss
products
• Require test agencies
• Costly
• Long test, result slow
• Required test agencies
• Slowest to conduct
• Costliest
• Lack of product control
• Security risk
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 Consumer Field Test: Procedure
and Steps
Stage 1: before testing Stage 2: testing and Data Collection
1. Identify problems and objectives 1. Observe testing on the field
2. Determine consumer test design
2. Documentations
3. Determine sample size (inline with budgeting)
3. Develop coding sheet for all questions in
4. Approvals
questionnaire
5. Developing questionnaire
6. Confer with client, marketing and other
4. Check data (raw) from questionnaire (check
department to make sure all issues all included completeness, clearness, etc)
in the questionnaire 5. Data tabulation, data cleaning
7. Pre-testing (if necessary) 6. Statistical and data analysis
8. Preparing samples (pilot scales)
7. Reporting
9. Obtain competitor products (if necessary)
8. Results presentation
10. Print and copy questionnaire (depends on
sample size) 9. Discussion for the final business decision
11. Last call meeting 10.Archive data and questionnaire 21
 Consumer test
• Tips of consumer testing (do and dont’s)
• Good working relationship between sensory researcher and test agency
• Do not change the study design in last minute
• Do not expect to change your design, questionnaire, number of products, or
recruitment criteria the day before the test
• Time-patient, ex: in stability testing (the 3 weeks data cannot represent the 6
month data)
• Criteria during the interview – can be too short can be too long
• Oversee and following the data-entry, tabulation and data analysis  assure the
quality control in data mining. Data validation section of each collected
questionnaire/results

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 Consumer screening
• Should be match with your objective
• Age consideration  depending on the target market of the product
• Children
• Adults (men, women, different social-economic status, ethnic, occupations, etc.)
• Elder
• Pre-teens
• Adolescents
• Etc.
• User – at least know or have tasted the similar product previously
• Familiarity  people hesitate to try product that completely new –
otherwise the product is never have developed before
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 Consumer screening
• Asked the necessarly information – following your study objective
• Ex: study objective is to evaluate the association between consumer
preferences and their knowledge of healthy foods in young-healthy
adults
• Consumer knowledge of healthy foods
• Age 18-25 year old
• Healthy and did not have any diseases impairment

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 Questionnaire Design
• Questionnaire flow, order of question
• When designing a questionnaire, it is useful to make a flow chart
of the topics to be covered.
• The flow chart can be very detailed and include all skip patterns or
it may simply list the general issues in order
• The primary rule for questionnaire flow:
• General  to specific
• The important principle here is to ask overall acceptability first,
before specific issues are raised

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 Questionnaire Design
Questionnaire flow
1. screening questions to qualify the respondent if they have not been
previously qualified;
2. general acceptability
3. open-ended reasons for liking or disliking;
4. specific attribute questions
5. claims, opinions, and issues
6. preference if a multi-sample test and/or rechecking acceptance via
satisfaction or other scale
7. sensitive personal demographics
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 Questionnaire Design
The questionnaire should match with the type of interview/evaluation
conducted
Type of Interview
1. Direct interview
2. Face to face interview
3. Telephone interview
4. Conducted via website (indirect questionnaire survey)
5. Self-administration interview
6. ONLINE interview
• Time consideration: 15-20 minutes for interview time
• Prepaid incentives can reduce non response questionnaire
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 Questionnaire Design
The General principles of Questionnaire constructions
1. Be brief.
2. Use plain language.
3. Do not ask what they do not know.
4. Be specific.
5. Multiple choice questions should be mutually exclusive and exhaustive.
6. Do not lead the respondent.
7. Avoid ambiguity.
8. Beware effects of wording.
9. Beware of halos
10. Pre-testing is usually necessary.

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 Questionnaire Design
• Brevity
• Keep the questionnaire as short as possible
• Respondents motivations and comprehension (too long will distract consumer)
• Use plain language
• Eliminate technical language
• Complete the acronyms (UHT, pasteurization)
• Accessibility of the information
• The question have to be adhere by consumers
• Do not ask something that costumer doesn’t know
• Avoid vague questions
• Be specific
• Addressing one issue, since consumer may go towards different directions
• Ex: “what type of milk did you buy?“, ”what type of milk did you buy for your kids?”
• Check for the overlapping question and completeness
• Questions about age and date of birth
• Manage and eliminate by pre-testing and review of questionnaire
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 Questionnaire Design
• Do not lead the respondents
• Information taken should solely by consumer/respondents
• Avoid question that suggest a correct or desirable answers
• Avoid ambiguity and double questions
• “how often do you consume ice cream and frozen yoghurt”  two products
• Be careful in wording: present both alternatives
• Do you want to purchase this products?  when
• How many times you often purchased this products, in past three months?
• Beware of Halos
• Asking only a good (winning) attributes can bias in overall liking score
• Go for the pre-test
• Pre-testing questionnaire are necessary
• Draft can show a potential problem that can counter acts for the real field test

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 Reference

• Meilgaard, M.C., Carr, B.T., & Carr, B.T. (2007). Sensory Evaluation
Techniques (4th ed.). CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1201/b16452
(Book refrence)
• Sensory Evaluation of Food: Principles and Practices. Harry T.
Lawless, Hildegarde Heymann. Springer; 2nd ed. 2010 edition ISBN-
10: 1441964878 ISBN-13: 978-1441964878

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Questions?

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