Tag Archives: Research

Highlights of Pangborn 2015

Pangborn 2015The international sensory symposium of the year, Pangborn 2015 has come to an end, leaving sensory and consumer researchers with a lot to think about.  I just wanted to share the highlights and three key themes of the conference here to get us all thinking about what the next two years may hold in product-based research.

 

Global research – The whole world is conducting sensory and consumer science, and Pangborn 2015 really opened up the world to all the possible insights, from Australia to China, from the US to Thailand.  Delegates learnt about the opportunities and challenges working across international markets and languages.

Speedy sensory – Rapid techniques in product evaluation, such as Mapping, Sorting and Check-All-That Apply (CATA) were put under the microscope at Pangborn, both for general research, and for assessments with specific target consumers.  As expected all rapid methods offer a trade off between speed, efficiency and the level of detail achieved.  As presented by Tracey Hollowood, and something I’ve personally embraced in my own publications, are the opportunities offered by hierarchical sorting approaches to gain fantastic sensory differences and product insight efficiently, while offering the closest option to profiling.  I’d be happy to share my thoughts and ideas on this as well as my paper for anyone interested!

Controlled context – Sensory scientists are always seeking to control all factors of product assessment, from sample preparation and presentation to the surrounding environment and even lighting. However, more consumer researchers are interested in assessing products within the context of where and when they would typically be used.   This is particularly interesting for consumer Central Location Testing (CLT) to determine whether a product fits the context and environment that it would usually be used in.  Therefore finding the ideal trade off between controlled, strict and accurate product testing, to more ‘in-the-moment’ assessments in context is still heavily under debate.

As expected, Pangborn 2015 was a fantastic mix of current research developments, intriguing novel applications for testing techniques as well as branching into newer unchartered territories of mobile apps, global consumer understanding and more implicit methodologies.

Pangborn Banner 2

11th Pangborn Sensory Science Symposium, Gothenburg, Sweden

Sunday is the start of Pangborn 2015, a key conference in the diary of Sensory Scientists across the world!  This year the Swedish Institute of Food and Biotechnology are hosting the five day event, bringing together sensory and consumer researchers, businesses and academic institutes from across the globe.

I’m very excited to be attending a few days of Pangborn this year, as the 2015 conference is focussing on a wide range of topic areas from fundamental sensory research to more broad scoping global approaches.  The cross-cultural context is particularly interesting as more and more global businesses are looking to develop products for different consumers and markets.  When I’m not on the MMR stand, I look forward to learning from speakers and poster presentations across a wide range of fields, although some have particularly piqued my interest.  I’m fascinated by sensory-driven product design to make better products for consumers, as well as learning about current innovations and advances in sensory and consumer methodologies to develop the best ways to test products, and this can help us all learn new and interesting approaches.

I’m eager to hear from leading experts in sensory and consumer science, and following my recent blog on fat perception, a keynote presentation from Professor Richard Mattes is high on my list!  As is the role of media in consumer and sensory testing to be discussed by Dr Dag Piper, which sounds very interesting and particularly relevant in today’s media centric society.  I’m sure the vast array of talks and posters will give all of us delegates and researchers a lot of food for thought!

Pangborn is a fantastic opportunity to learn, swap ideas, meet new people and build steps for innovation.

I hope to see you there!

The not so sweet taste of fat

Fat

Another exciting study has hit the world of taste research.  Researchers from Purdue University, have found new evidence to suggest we can perceive the taste of fat, termed ‘Oleogustus’.  In a study published this month, Mattes and his team have found new evidence that fats can have a distinct taste, different sensation to the basic tastes of sweet, sour, salty, bitter or umami.

In this study, volunteers were screened for their taste ability through a series of discrimination (spot the similar samples) tests.  Screening selected 69% of volunteers, with 36% showing higher taste acuity.  Successful participants wore nose clips, to reduce the impact of aroma and flavour, and sorted a variety of taste samples into groups using an adapted Taxonomic Free Sorting approach.  The samples were matched for texture, so volunteers focussed on taste differences when describing what united samples that they placed in the same groups.

Sorting results found participants grouped samples into salty, sweet, sour and bitter tastes, with the fat samples generally placed separately to all these basic tastes.  Whilst some overlap was observed with certain fats considered to be have elements sour, umami and bitter tastes, follow-up assessments found participants could isolate the fat samples specifically. Some short chain fatty acids were found to be slightly sour, whilst medium length chain fatty acids had some cross-over with umami compounds such as Monosodium Glutamate.  Interestingly, long chain fatty acids were found to have some bitter associations for consumers, and these findings led the study authors to conclude that the taste of fat may not be entirely pleasant, and even considered unpalatable.

Despite fat delivering a specific sensation we can detect on the tongue, it is the combination of these tastes, aromas, textures and flavours that contribute to the full sensory experience.  Fats can aid flavour delivery and provide texture cues to a wide range of products such as the melting mouthfeel of chocolate and ice cream, so even though it may be unpalatable when isolated, fat is easily accepted in the full context of foods and beverages.  Nevertheless, this greater understanding of what we perceive when we eat, can help industry develop low fat alternatives and fat replacers, knowing the role this essential ingredient plays in the mouth, and how we can perceive it.

This is a fascinating finding for both sensory research and the food industry as a whole, particularly for those developing low fat products with fat free alternatives.  This study highlights that fat has a taste which could be important to mimic in low fat products, as well as indicating the levels that isolated fatty acids can detected by consumers.  The concentrations of fats used in this study are around the levels in fermented and rancid products and could help explain the unpalatable nature of fat samples by consumers.  This new study suggests the taste of fat could play more of a role in food perception than we all realise, beyond the texture and mouthfeel characteristics we recognise in some of our favourite foods like chocolate!