Application of Sensory Science and Consumer Testing (FSD354) UC Davis Extension
Lesson 10: Future of Sensory Science
We will look into our crystal ball and based on our own experience with current trends, make some educated guesses as to the future for sensory science and consumer testing.
Lesson Objectives
In this lesson you will learn ideas for the future regarding:
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Education of the Sensory Scientist
Tools for Data Collection
Digital Aroma Technology
Sensory and Consumer Testing Methodology
Taste Modifiers Research
Cross Cultural Research
Non-Food Applications
Final Send-off for Students!!!
For the education of the sensory scientist, we foresee that educational institutions will see the value of offering a major in this area combining courses in food science, psychology, marketing, and statistics. At first, the major will be associated with existing food science departments, but eventually the Sensory
Science major will be part of an undergraduate program in marketing research. In addition, distancelearning programs like this certificate program will become an integral source of professional training.
These web-based programs will not only include certificate programs such as this one, but also full degree programs for undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral levels.
All major universities that have sensory programs will offer distance-learning courses that will compete directly with this UC Davis Extension program.
ASTM International, Committee E-18 will finally agree on a set of requirements that will comprise a certificate program in Sensory Science and Consumer Testing. The UCDE (University of California at
Davis Extension) certificate program will be approved for the educational component of the certificate program.
Specialized workshops from vendor companies will continue to be a supplement to professional ongoing education, but will concentrate more on advanced methods and proprietary techniques.
A very high percentage of those in sensory positions in industry will have had a much more complete sensory/consumer education than is the case today.
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Application of Sensory Science and Consumer Testing (FSD354) UC Davis Extension
Lesson 10: Future of Sensory Science
As you are well aware, sensory testing is a labor-intensive process that involves a tremendous amount of data collection and processing. As computerized systems become more commonplace, the emphasis on the sensory staff will be less about data collection, and will shift to be more about understanding the data to make sound business decisions.
The collection of data in the laboratory, CLT, and HUT will primarily use computers for respondents entering data. This will be true for all types of sensory and consumer methods - discriminative, descriptive, affective, and cognitive research.
Respondent data from CLTs will be entered on laptops or hand held computers (PDAs) and then information will be transferred immediately to a central server in the company or vendor. Then through pre-programming, it will be summarized immediately, tested for significant differences, and organized into tables and graphs. This procedure will also be (and currently in) utilized in HUT by either hand held computers of the respondents or through laptops provided to respondents.
Some aspects of sensory panel training also will be conducted via the Web as products will be sent home and evaluations will be logged into their descriptive analysis training program. This is currently being done in a variety of ways. Respondents are provided Web-based tools and instructions to complete their evaluations.
The Internet will be a commonly used method of data collection. This will allow for products to be evaluated in a more realistic setting, providing the context that booth evaluations do not. It will be more common to have product evaluations at home, even for descriptive analysis, in which evaluations are entered into a Web page. There will be very good data on the similarities and differences between
Internet respondents and those recruited by other more standard techniques, which will help with the interpretation of Internet results. A majority of the adult population will belong to an Internet pool of respondents that can be accessed for product and service evaluations. With the use of smart cards, detailed information on purchase habits will be available for consumers within a very small geographic range (zip codes or postal codes).
Internet research is such a fast changing process, which results in various theories on conducting effective and accurate Internet research. However, many companies currently conduct concept screening and product evaluations in the cloud, as well as a multitude of interest surveys. At the last
Pangborn symposium (September2011), several companies had set up research tools on their company
Website to probe their most dedicated users. Their theory is that they could probe this high interest group on new products, key benefits to the brand, etc. However, it is still too early to tell how representative they are of the population as a whole and how this impacts the business.
One caution. We have noticed a tendency for some organizations to assume that the sensory professional is a "sensory expert" and can make externally valid judgments about how products will perform in the marketplace. Resist this!!! This is a throwback to the expert panel scenario that is not the recommend approach to assess consumer liking. Remember, sensory is a scientific discipline, not an expert judgment.
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Application of Sensory Science and Consumer Testing (FSD354) UC Davis Extension
Lesson 10: Future of Sensory Science
Increasingly sensory science professionals will utilize methods that bridge the gap between traditional sensory measures and those relating to marketing aspects. This will include data collection on brand, price, benefits, and packaging variables. Because of this change, there will be extensive blurring of the designations between sensory departments and marketing research departments. In some instances these will be departments formed representing both sensory science and marketing research personnel.
There will be sufficiently reliable data relating sensory and instrumental data that for most routine quality control activities, instruments can be used for screening production products. In particular, the electronic nose or digital aroma technology shows increasing promise (see discussion in Topic 10.6).
Focus groups, sensory immersion, ethnographic, and observational research techniques will increasingly be conducted using Web-based tools so that that more researchers can participate in the activities. Many companies now offer this service, but most focus groups continue to be conducted in the traditional ways. However, as this technology gains acceptance, it will become more common to include participants in multiple locations. This will also provide more access to behavioral observations and discussion groups that target audiences not currently able to participate in such discussions i.e., remote locations and very specific user demographics.
Statistical tools will be available that, when combined with consumer computer input, will conduct very sophisticated analyses and graphing of results automatically. This will include the ability to analyze simultaneously the descriptive, affective, analytical, demographic, and behavioral results for 'presentation ready' information.
At the outset and at numerous other times during this program, we have mentioned that sensory science/consumer testing has moved beyond food to many other consumer products. It is probably safe to say that no consumer product that has a sensory property has gone without some type of sensory science/consumer testing evaluation. Looking back at previous Pangborn Conferences (2007, 2009 and
2011), one could hear presentations and see posters on personal care products and automobiles, among other non-food items. However it was obvious that most of these came from non-US sources.
Does this mean that there is no non-food research going on in the United States? We know that this is not true. The low visibility is probably due to the fact that non-food research is newer and has a high proprietary nature. We predict that in the future, the sensory/consumer research in non-food organizations will be appearing in journals and presented at conferences. In part, the pressure to do this will come from the sensory scientists within companies and in part because upper management will realize that the exchange of technical information can be beneficial to the organization.
Evidence of this is the first International conference on Materials and Sensations was held in France in
2004 that involved a number of non-food applications.
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Application of Sensory Science and Consumer Testing (FSD354) UC Davis Extension
Lesson 10: Future of Sensory Science
More recently, the development of electronic noses and tongues, also known as digital aroma technology, has renewed interest in this area (see Bartlett, et al, 1997 and Bleibaum, et al, 2002).
Knowledge of relationships between sensory and physical and chemical measures will have a significant economic impact on product quality and consumer purchase behaviors. The use of an instrument will be a tremendous advantage for a variety of repetitive tasks, especially in quality control and where panel members are quickly fatigued.
Currently, it is not very common to have a company use an instrumental evaluation exclusively for quality control purposes, but it is our prediction that most major companies will move toward this goal as the sensor technology improves, certainly for routine procedures. Sensor technology is currently used to evaluate process control, and will become more readily available and reliable for QC processes.
There is also a whole new field in the works for digital aromas. These devises are connected to your computer via a USB port, and they use cartridges much like a printer. The cartridges contain primary scents and when mixed together in certain combinations, create new aromas. When the computer is programmed to select the various scents, the oils inside the cartridge are heated and then combined using a small fan that is blown out to the user to provide the aroma. Potentially, this could be used for inhome or in-lab descriptive analysis panel training.
This technology was first created in the 1950s in the motion picture industry. Later, DigiScents' iSmell, the most visible company in this endeavor, wanted to work with this idea to improve the taste of products through smell research. They created a Smell Index that categorizes the different smells and various combinations. However, in 2001, DigiScents ran out of money during the dot-com bust. However, another company, TriSenx SENX provides fragrances and aromas, which are stored in disposable cartridges. They claim that thousands of smells can be created with their cartridges.
And for something really out there, there is a company working on smell camera. If and when these cameras become more readily available to consumers, they claim that people could create a scrapbook of smells from their vacation (or maybe of their favorite restaurant), alongside their photographs. If you are interested, here are several articles and topics that you can search on the internet.
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"You've Got Smell", Wired
"Digital Scents", HowStuffWorks
"How Internet Odors Will Work", HowStuffWorks
"Sniff-and-Scratch", Time
The Experience System, Digital Tech Frontier, and LLC.
Cyrano Sciences (smell-digitizing company)
A digital taste of smell: How the Web will conquer our five senses, Eurescom www.alpha-mos.com
www.senomyx.com
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Application of Sensory Science and Consumer Testing (FSD354) UC Davis Extension
Lesson 10: Future of Sensory Science
Basic research continues to produced compounds allowing for major taste modification. Certainly, there are now better flavor modifiers, flavor enhancers, and bitter blockers under development. There also is increased interest in reducing sodium content without altering consumers perceived salt taste impact. It is not too far out to see substances which, when added to foods, will give the sensation and perception of fat without the calories! These taste modifiers (and perhaps odor modifiers) will need to be evaluated by sensory scientists using all the discriminative, descriptive, and affective tools available to understand if they actually perform as claimed (yes, advertising claims), to map sensory similarities and differences, as well as consumer preference and key benefits.
Recent research utilizing FMRI -- which demonstrates the way in which the brain responds to sensory stimuli -- will lead to the utilization of this type of measurement to evaluate affective responses to both food and non-food stimuli. Thus it will become possible to estimate the degree of liking for a product by an entirely objective measure. FMRI will not replace all affective scaling and certainly not discriminative or descriptive information. There will no doubt be a great deal of research relating the FMRI response to a number of affective scaling methods. Some of the existing research has already demonstrated an ability to differentiate among various forms of advertising messages. If you are interested, go into any
Web search engine with some of these concept words and you will find some interesting information.
There will be a greater interchange of information and people between the US and other countries. This will come about through the development of international organizations, through mergers and thorough interactions at international conferences.
In order to obtain higher levels of efficiency, a number of vendors will merge from different parts of the
USA, Europe, Latin America and Asia. This will provide for very effective field-testing and a more equitable position for sensory/consumer science. Many of these organizations will have a higher proportion of marketing and market research educated staff so that there will be more attention given to traditional and new sensory and marketing research methods.
With the tremendous growth in multi-national business, it is increasingly important for companies to understand consumer behavior and preferences across different areas of the world. To help sensory scientists, ASTM E18 recently (2007) published a manual, MNL-55-EB-DL 20812, International
Consumer Product Testing across Cultures and Countries.
This publication presents a discussion of issues involved in the planning, design, and execution of international consumer product tests across cultures and countries along with and the data analysis and interpretation of the results. http://www.astm.org/DIGITAL_LIBRARY/MNL/SOURCE_PAGES/MNL55.htm
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Application of Sensory Science and Consumer Testing (FSD354) UC Davis Extension
Lesson 10: Future of Sensory Science
The future for sensory science/consumer testing is very bright, based on the number of companies searching for sensory professionals and on the increasing numbers of professionals attending
International Sensory Conferences representing many product categories. Although there have been multiple mergers and subsequent cutbacks in the workforce, there is still a great demand for strategic sensory information.
For sensory evaluation to move beyond the typical role of a service organization within companies and universities, sensory scientists must become more strategic in their thinking and their actions. We must anticipate needs, become involved in more high-level meetings at the early stages of projects, and do less "laboratory research" and more "real world" research. This must be done with a strategic business plan that is aligned with marketing and marketing research. In addition, users and requestors of sensorybased research must become more educated as to the strategic business opportunities provided by this information.
In turn, sensory professionals also must learn more about other disciplines such as marketing research and business planning. We also need to become more effective in delivering key results, rather than promoting the scientific methodology used to gather the data. We must always answer the question
"What does it mean to the business?"
Sensory evaluation is a very profitable investment for companies to make, and according to Stone,
Bleibaum, & Thomas (2012), for every dollar invested in sensory, the company will realize a return of many times their initial investment. This kind of success occurs only when sensory professionals actively participate in the business of sensory evaluation. The development and use of predictive models of consumer-product behavior has had, and will continue to have, a tremendous impact, not only because of the specific and immediate value to a company but also because of effectiveness in demonstrating a higher degree of sophistication than was realized as possible for sensory evaluation. For these reasons, we can be optimistic about the future for sensory science in business.
Good luck to all of you and . . .
Wishing you the best sensory success!
Sincerely,
Howard, Becky, and JX
1. Moskowitz, HR. 2003. The intertwining of psychophysics and sensory analysis: Historical perspectives and future opportunities - a personal view. Food Quality and Preference 14 (2)
87-98.
2. Anon. 2001. Honey, smell this. Is it bad? Food Quality and Preference, July, Aug. 34, 36-39.
3. Stone, H., Bleibaum, R., and Thomas, H., 2012. Sensory Evaluation Practices, 4 th
edition.
Elsevier, Academic Press, Inc., San Diego.
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Copyright © Dr. Howard G. Schutz and Rebecca N. Bleibaum 2012