Chapter 1: Food Development: The Sensory & Consumer Approach

Too often in the past food companies have entrusted consumer studies to marketers, who traditionally have set the problem according to a comparative logic (product A is sweeter than product B) by performing, at best, innumerable tests of comparison in pairs. At the basis of this rather simplistic choice was the suspicion that a number of samples greater than two caused consumer fatigue or that this was the discriminatory limit.

In addition, marketing staff, by delegating agencies and interviewers for data collection, have also become aware of the fact that in order to reach the quota, i.e., the critical number of consumers, they inevitably lose direct contact with their consumers.

The concept of quality for food products is in general very complex: the quality of a product is linked to the combined effect of various factors, such as the suitability of the raw material, the transformation and conservation processes, the elemental composition, the commercial presentation including the quality:price ratio and, to a considerable extent, the sensory properties.

The acceptability of a food product is largely influenced by its sensory properties, i.e., by all those properties that affect above all the organs of taste, smell and vision (Figure 1.1).

Many other aspects, such as nutritional value, chemical stability, the absence of pathogenic microorganisms, etc. are undoubtedly important in establishing the goodness of a food product, but the sensory characteristics give rise to the first judgment of the consumer, and a food that does not present a good taste, smell or appearance is unlikely to be appreciated. As mentioned, very often, especially in the past, the problems associated with sensory evaluation have been solved superficially; in fact, while for the determination of the physical and chemical properties, more and more precise tools and more and more specific techniques have been developed, the application of which requires careful preparation by the analyst, to evaluate the complex sensory properties, we have always thought that everyone could simply make a judgment. At the basis of this too simplistic behavior was the opinion that as people are different from each other, their sensory abilities are equally different, so that it is impossible to establish a judgment that is shared by all.

In food processing companies there is still a natural tendency on the part of both the research technician and the production technician to consider their personal preference with regard to flavor and smell an adequate guide for the development or improvement of a product. This self-confidence is often justified by the successes achieved, but in many cases said experts either did not work enough or did not work in conditions that offer convincing evidence of their reliability. In such cases the problem that arises is in determining the risk you take in accepting a given judgment, with all the economic and psychological inconveniences that may derive from it.

Sensory information is unique, and cannot be acquired by alternative means that would allow substantial direct costs advantages.

It is clear, however, that it is only in recent times that the commercial environment has shown a real interest in the potential inherent sensory evaluation and in how it can be best used. Such a recent, however slow, acceptance of this means of evaluation reflects the lack of a well-defined purpose and the inability of the sector experts to use their resources effectively. In fact, too much effort is spent on trivial questions, such as the search for a method that with a single test provides answers to all sensory questions, or in an attempt to educate people to respond as tools, capable of sensory responses closely related to specific physical and chemical values. Teaching people to provide a specific response assumes an invariability that is unrealistic and not typical of human behavior.

Sensory evaluation is a scientific discipline used to measure, analyze and interpret responses to products that are perceivable through the senses of taste, sight, smell, touch and hearing. The reader's attention is drawn to the fact that sensory evaluation is not limited to a specific sense, that it is therefore not possible to evaluate separately and individually the aroma or taste of a product, but that it is an inclusive process of perceptions which may lead to the identification of certain ‘preferable’ products, without guaranteeing a good result on the market.

Likewise, the use of sensory evaluation is not a guarantee of the success of a product. We know of companies with minimal or non-existent sensory resources and which are however very successful. There is no shortage of exceptions, which leads us not to put too much emphasis to these examples, but to go further.

The sensory characteristics of a product can generally be grouped into three categories, namely appearance, flavor and consistency. These categories, however, are not independent from each other. For example, color, which is obviously an important feature of appearance, can have an influence on flavor perception.

Consumers will assign higher scores for aroma intensity to dark red strawberry jams than light ones. The interaction between appearance and flavor is called ‘visual flavor’.

Sensory analysis is a scientific discipline used to measure, evaluate and interpret the characteristics of food and other products perceived through the sensory receptors of sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing.

The definition goes beyond any qualitative and quantitative approach or assessments made by trained judges or with consumers. The use of appropriate statistical tools also ensures the reliability of the results. Sometimes improperly defined with the term ‘organoleptic’ to indicate the judgment provided through the sense organs, it is actually the sensory receptors and not the organs that respond to stimuli (Figure 1.2).

Examples of application of sensory analysis include the study of commercial life and shelf life, quality control and assurance, and the formulation of new products.

Sensory analysis was actually born to objectively describe what is highly subjective, i.e., perception, and over time has significantly expanded its interpretative role to become a marketing tool, the latter which in its most technical sense refers to the study of the market (and not as it is interpreted in the communication/promotion of particular characteristics).

Sensory science has evolved into a pragmatic discipline perhaps even before developing its own intellectual corpus with a rational content and, as an unpleasant consequence of this, it reaches users and students burdened with considerable myths and beliefs about what the correct procedures are, what the objective is, and what is absolutely wrong.

Almost always, most of these legends have never actually been outlined and demonstrated in scientific literature through experimental data, but rather are shown/flaunted in meetings and in ‘forums’, especially by those who wish to take advantage of the elitist status that is thus generated. These are myths that are sometimes amusing, but which in fact represent a significant obstacle to the subject development, especially in its operation.

According to a more modern paradigm, the sensory analyst must be able to analyze the products, concepts and packages as a whole, while traditionally they have concentrated their studies on the products, leaving the research on the concepts to experts or market researchers. The sensory analyst must determine how the product fits the concept, as well as determine whether or not the product has the appropriate level of acceptability and the right sensory profile. The analyst must also check whether the efforts made by the entire team (R&D, marketing, production) meet consumer expectations or (reverse process), study the market expectations and communicate them to their colleagues in the aforementioned disciplines for a remodelling of the parameters studied.

Below, four legends are reported that still persist and are capable of delighting critics, and of perplexing neophytes, dogmatists and iconoclasts.¹ 

• (i) The consumer is unable to evaluate more than two products without losing sensitivity.

It is not clear at all where and how this sensory myth was born, because daily experience and psychophysics show that the average consumer is able to discriminate easily between a series of similar products and to correctly evaluate the sensory magnitude of different stimuli at relatively short time intervals, even in the absence of prolonged training periods.

The myth may have originated from studies in which each subject's goal was to discriminate between pairs of stimuli, rather than evaluating them individually on a scale. With N stimuli there are N (N−1)/2 pairs to be evaluated and if N is sufficiently small (e.g., 4) the comparison generates 6 combinations of pairwise comparisons. When N is larger, the number of couples to be evaluated grows considerably making the goal impossible. For example, with N=10 a series of unmanageable pair comparisons is produced (45 pair combinations equal to 90 products to be evaluated), so it is more feasible to have the individual elements evaluated one at a time. Another possible origin of the aforementioned myth could be from impromptu comments expressed in company's kitchens, by ‘assessment’ or ‘tasting’ participants, or in any other product presentation setting. These are informal assessments of a number of products, often also competitors’ ones. In general, these sessions do not require scientific rigor, more often than not, the company group arranges itself around the kitchen counter and opens the samples, inspects them and then tastes them. The sensory analysis expert presents the different samples in a predetermined order, e.g., to show the specific ‘nuances’ between the products, then suggests a series of evaluation criteria, which can simply derive from the experience gained on the product or, more formally through the use of assessment forms.

Often when there is the simultaneous presence of technical staff and marketing experts, the order degenerates into chaos when the subjects examine one product after another, mixing them several times to try to better understand the differences. This chaos leads to negative comments, e.g., by those subjects who do not ‘remember’ the product they have just tasted, who feel they have ‘lost’ their sensitivity or who do not remember much of the first sample in the series. These protests derive from the lack of pauses between the samples; in fact the participants are only allowed to rinse their mouths between one tasting and the next and are expected to keep in mind all the sensory information acquired. As a consequence, the participants feel they cannot cope with this sensory overload and complain that they cannot reach the goal. At this point then the careful researcher who attends the tasting session changes the procedure and allows each participant to take note of their feelings, thus simulating faithfully enough what happens in a real sensory test.

• (ii) Sensory science to be conducted under optimal conditions must make use of strictly controlled conditions.

Sixty years ago few gave importance to the ‘state of the art’ and to the boundary conditions, while from a certain point on it was decided that the food sensory evaluation should be carried out only in separate booths in which the participants couldn't see each other.

A conspicuous number of these well-insulated booths with appropriate light and spittoons began to appear between the 1960s and 1970s; sensory analysis experts publicly boasted of this equipment as it offered the best ability to control the setting and, above all, it made the technicians involved belong to an increasingly restricted elite.

It was therefore decided that the only way to conduct any sensory evaluation was through the white booths, in which the judges spent the entire duration of the test in isolation.

If it is absolutely true that studies carried out under controlled conditions lead to the best results, more generally, what is needed for the judges is a comfortable environment, so that they do not suffer from the experience and the isolation imposed, especially in long sessions when evaluating numerous products, but are emotionally involved.

The extension of the methods of sensory analysis to consumer science, which corresponds to the analytical passage from the trained judge accustomed to the ‘extreme’ conditions of the laboratory to the subject/consumer, providing greater convenience, has made the requirement for isolation less important.

One way to pursue this dual objective may be to create an evaluation environment that includes computerized workstations for data acquisition and tables arranged so that the judges can see each other, without interacting and without seeing what the other judges have recorded. This provision is made by spacing the judges ‘in the workstations’ arranged radially so as not to perceive isolation, but that there is at the same time the required control. A limit to this provision may come from the privacy required when it is necessary to expectorate, in this case publicly, the products evaluated.

• (iii) Only expert judges can evaluate the sensory characteristics of food, while the consumer judges only overall liking.

This is a particularly dangerous and well-established legend that has no justification in the scientific literature.

Some of its origins are based on scientific data, others on the desire to perpetuate a scientific practice, perhaps as a result of less noble and more elitist motivations.

Academic research, especially in psychophysics, began with the assumption that people could not function effectively as measuring instruments for assessing sensory intensity.²  This is the so-called ‘direct approach’, rejected for more than three quarters of a century in favor of ‘indirect measures’; the indirect measure presents the judges with two stimuli at a time and determines the degree to which they can be confused with each other or the level of preference. The subsequent statistical analysis evaluates the collected data variability and estimates the scalar values associated with the stimulus, with the property that the more two products are superimposable (or equally preferred), the more the stimuli will be found adjacent on the evaluation scale. Fechner himself, the founder of psychophysics, believed that the judges were not able to carefully evaluate the intensity, based his theory on the aggregation of units of ‘discrimination’ or ‘minimally perceptible differences’, JND (just noticeable difference), to build a psychophysical scale of magnitude. Thurstone developed a series of mathematical transformations to use this type of data on confusability by further expanding the approach, but always using indirect measures.³ 

Even the conviction about the impossibility of an evaluator to pay attention to multiple attributes of a stimulus have contributed to the spread of the myth. Psychophysicists did not say anything about the individual's ability to assess intensity, in fact the fundamentals of direct ‘scaling’ are precisely based on the assumption that panel members can judge intensity in a reproducible way through the use of scales. In the psychophysics labs of 50 years ago, academics involved in direct scaling instructed the judges to evaluate in one session only one particular aspect of the stimulus, e.g., the generic body of a sound instead of treble, bass or loudness.⁴  Even Stevens, one of the greatest modern psychophysicists, had a firm conviction that judges could not easily split attribute from attribute in a session.⁵ 

In the early scaling work on the sweetness and pleasantness of sugar and sweeteners, tests were organized so that panel members participated in two evaluation sessions. In one session they had to evaluate the sweetness perceived in the sugar and the other the pleasantness. Psychophysics scholars working with gustatory sensory stimuli capable of producing multiple sensations (sweet, salty, sour, bitter) wanted to free themselves from these limited and stereotyped paradigms and encouraged panel members to classify the level of each attribute on a scale. The result was that even those subjects not particularly trained did not seem to show problems in shifting attention from one sensation to another.

The commercial purposes of sensory science have contributed to the spread of the aforementioned myth. The 1950s and 1970s saw the interest in sensory characteristics shift towards descriptive analysis, and it was through some of these systems that the legend that the consumer was unable to evaluate a product's sensory attributes effectively arose, despite the findings reported by the scientific literature. All the descriptive methods require exhausting training; training was essential for panel members to understand the meaning of the attributes and to homogenise the terms meanings by using reference standards. Everything was fine until one had to deal with uncommon and unclear attributes without an explanation.

At this point much of the scientific research was stifled and collided with the statements regarding the inability of the consumer to evaluate the intensity perceived in a valid way on a scale.

It seems that it has never been established by the literature whether experts actually work better than non-experts, and there is not even a clear formulation of the criteria on which the experts are supposed to judge whether the experts are more sensitive to differences of the same stimulus. Do they have a better vocabulary? Are they more reliable? The results of the comparison conducted on different attributes between consumers and experts suggest that the two groups can be correlated in the classification carried out by operating with scales, when the consumer fully understands the meaning of the attribute.

• (iv) Statisticians are the essence of a good sensory analysis (i.e., ‘If you don't know the latest statistics ‘vagaries’ you cannot consider yourself a professional’).

This is a potentially harmful myth, in part because the abandonment of statistics could plunge sensory analysis back to the dawn. In part, however, the myth should be clarified, because for last 30 years statistical knowledge has been equated to professional competence in the field of sensory science.

Although the author of this (non-statistical) article is passionate about statistical analysis, especially the most recent one relating to the exploration and graphic representation of data, it often happens that those involved in sensory analysis use indecipherable statistical methods only to increase its prestige.

The data processing methods that stimulate the researcher to derive the greatest possible variability by using multidimensional modelling and a graphical representation of the data often blur the objective. Too often, in fact, concrete and valid thoughts are sacrificed in the name of modern statistical processing procedures, as if those who dealt with sensory science could not think about the problem without an esoteric approach. What often escapes the scholars of sensory analysis, a condition imposed on themselves by their own self-elevation, is pragmatism, i.e., the possibility that the proposed method may be of real help (with a truly tangible use) in the development and evaluation of R&D and marketing products without the need for superior statistical knowledge, i.e., far from promoting the use of elementary methods at all costs, there is an ‘easy and ready to use’ method even for the most complicated mathematical models.

It is necessary to dispel the latent belief, however, without effecting the impact of the sensory evaluation, that in order to obtain valuable insights it is necessary to employ complex statistical processing procedures.

Why do sensory analysis experts continue to accept mythology about consumer performance and correct operation? Scientists who are not sufficiently prepared, as has been the case for some time, are trained with myths, as the latter provide comforting directives and reduce operational uncertainty by providing a fake set of requirements. The sensory analysis expert captured by mythology does not need to ask questions, think or worry. Indeed, the myth prescribes a behavior and in that the neophyte scientist feels he is doing ‘the right action’.

Furthermore, the myth creates a community. A community of professionals who work following the same mythology authorizes the neophyte to join it and the myth then becomes the entry price and the key to becoming a member.

Sensory evaluation is often the strategic key to determine the food products shelf life. The commercial life of microbiologically stable foods, such as biscuits or mayonnaise, is necessarily based on variations in their sensory properties.

In the development process, at the end of the supposed shelf-life the product concerned should be (a) similar to the standard/fresh product (just produced): this is typical in the case of a high-end commercial product for which the consumer is not prepared to accept any loss of quality when adhering to the storage conditions suggested by the manufacturer; (b) different, but acceptable, especially when it comes to natural products, such as cheeses or cold cuts, which are expected to be different over time (maturation/seasoning). The approach in these cases considers the following points: determination of the sensory profile for a series of products with different storage times to understand the changing profile mechanism over time; study of market acceptability; and integration of the aforementioned data to identify critical attributes.

At the beginning researchers began in earnest to study what people liked and disliked. The researchers realized quite quickly that a lot of the basic likes and dislikes came from taste and smell. It was hard, in fact almost a forced ‘task’ to rate liking and disliking of texture and appearance.

It was thought then perhaps there might be some universally liked stimuli. One of these was oil of rose. It turned out that a lot of people liked this, but not everyone. The bottom line was that no stimulus in taste and smell was universally liked. There was always some degree of variability. That there is variability is one thing. But how does one go from variability to underlying basic genomes of the mind, basic patterns of likes and dislikes.

Look at Figure 1.3. The figure shows how liking changes as a stimulus changes in intensity. It really doesn't matter what the stimulus is. It's a matter of how the pattern looks.

The key to the whole problem is called an ‘organizing principle’. The way Figure 1.3 presents itself, we are stuck with the measurement of inter-personal variation. It is nice to know that people differ from each other. But, truthfully, so what? Why would that interest us?

Let us move away from the world of cataloguing inter-personal variation and try to create an organizing principle. There won't be right or wrong; we are working on new ground, on terra incognita.

One way is to look for a simple organizing principle that will shed light. That principle is that we will look for the value of X, the sensory intensity, at which a person's liking reaches its peak, while at the same time ensuring that that sensory level (the optimal level), lies within the range of levels that we tested. In simple words, in Figure 1.3 (right panel), each person has a value on the x-axis where his liking peaks. These are shown by the vertical bars, dropping from the optimal to the abscissa, and defining a location on the abscissa corresponding to the optimum.

Using this principle to identify new segments and thus new products

Up to now we have talked in theory. Let us see how companies use this way of segmenting people, and then develop products. The approach is fairly simple. It is a matter of seeing patterns in these people-to-people differences and then using those patterns.

To describe the process we will go through the steps. At the end of the day, however, the proof is in the market. Does this approach really work? We will deal with that as well.

1. Relate liking on the ordinate (y-axis) to sensory intensity on the x-axis (abscissa). We saw an example of that in Figure 1.3.

2. Develop this same liking versus sensory relation on a person by person basis. Use the group sensory ratings for a set of related products, e.g., orange juice, so that each product has one number for each sensory attribute. However, each person can use his own scale of liking.

3. The results for a group of individuals are going to look a lot like the different curves in Figure 1.3, but they will not be as nicely shaped. Some of the peaks will be higher, some of the peaks will be lower on the ordinate.

4. At the end of the day we will have a group of different numbers for each sensory attribute. Each person will generate one number for each sensory attribute. That number will tell us the level on that sensory attribute where the person's liking peaks.

5. Although some people may love the product and give it high numbers, and others may hate the product and give it low numbers, what is really important is the sensory level at which a person's liking peaks – no matter how high or low that level is.

6. We use statistical methods to divide people into groups, based upon the patterns of these numbers. Each person has a pattern of numbers to show the sensory levels at which their liking peaks. We can compare the people on these levels. Clustering methods, putting people into groups based upon the pattern of these numbers, produces new groups of people. People in the same group, or now the same ‘sensory segment’, show the same pattern of what they like.

7. This method has produced products in different forms and flavors, to satisfy the sensory segments.

8. To get a sense of just how powerful this method of sensory segmentation is, take a look at Figure 1.4. The data comes from orange juice, tested in three European countries. What is important is not the exact experiment, but what happens when our respondents test orange juice by amounts of pulp. In the three countries (left panel) we see similar patterns. But when we divide these respondents, not by country, but by sensory segment independent of country, we see different patterns, and the possibilities for different products (right panel).

Everyday experience tells us that people differ from each other in what they like. Observing people trying new foods, especially those with unusual flavors, quickly reveals to us the degree of this difference. And if we are still not convinced we need only go to the store, and watch people reach for different flavors of the same products. The person to person variability is unmistakeable.

A little deeper thinking and we ought to realize that Nature may present us with random variability, but not all the variation that we see in Nature can be attributed to this randomness. Maybe the variability is doing something else, signaling us that we are dealing with different groups of people who like different products. Then once when we emerge from looking for rules that apply to everyone, and start to think about different products for different folks, this once annoying variability, this intractable error terms, turns into our friend and our light, to help us see these different groups of sensory preferences scattered about in our target population. At the end of the day there lie new continents, new inhabitants, new products, rather than simply variability in what we already know.

Sensory marketing deals with measuring and explaining consumer emotions in order to capitalize on them in new market opportunities. It also allows us to maximize the profit of particular products and customer loyalty so that they will repeat purchase so as to guarantee success for as long as possible.

Perhaps in an era characterized by short messages and rapid ‘chirps’, by further synthesizing we could define sensory marketing as those marketing techniques that deal with seducing the consumer through the senses. Sensory marketing deals with the upstream part of seduction, the study and measurement of what fascinates the consumer through his senses.

A sensory approach to market research tries to reduce the limits of traditional marketing which is too rational, based on the idea that a consumer is logically rigorous in his choices when faced with a product offer, competing products and so on.

Marketing has entered the era in which ideas and concepts must be reconsidered and in the same way their forms studied. However, it has set aside the need–purchase–benefit logic by creating new strategies capable, first, of studying the context and, therefore, of establishing emotional ties with consumers.

Mass marketing is definitively disappearing, replaced by new hyper-segmented markets in which individualism and personalization represent its strategic key. It follows that the necessary ‘costs to improve’ to reach consumers must be reviewed, supported by the numerous new forms of media communication that have appeared in the meantime. In the same way those tools, even the most recent ones, which have been used to obtain an express link with the market, including the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) for the management of customer relations or the CSM (Customer Standardization Management) for the specific marketing of customers, must be more personalized.

There is big business in business advice, and there are some interesting patterns. There is the focus on process. Everyone is interested in process. Today's business is a process, a series of connected steps, of things one has to do. Then there is the focus on people. Everyone has to be given the chance to be all he can be. And finally, there is the focus on doing, on creating products, on doing more with less, on satisfying and evening delighting the customer.

Now that we have a sense of the value of process, as an organizing system that lets people marshal resources and get things done, we move to the world of process in product development. During the past 50 years or so, many companies have instituted product development processes. Their reasoning is quite simple and attractive. During the middle of the 20th century a lot of smaller companies were able to create foods, distribute them locally, and eventually put them into a wide number of stores. It wasn't easy, of course, but there wasn't as much competition and formalization as today.

With increasing sophistication and industrial ‘savvy’ comes the need to move the business beyond the talented individual, and into a system. The same can be said for product development. Whereas it was possible perhaps in 1950 or 1960 to create a product, put it out locally, see how it performed, and then modify it, over time the creation, selling-in, and logistical supply chain of products has become far tougher. Stores are not happy to have products to sell; they have valuable real estate to rent out to manufacturers. Stores do not just accept food virtually ‘on consignment,’ but rather rent out their space in terms of so-called slotting fees. So the story turns from the legendary single creator of a food to a food business. In short, the pattern is the same for food products as for just about everything else today.

With the risks involved, then, just how is the company going to succeed? It is one thing to have the genius product developer, or a recipe from one's grandmother. Those happen all the time; everyone has a grandmother somewhere or other, and a lot of the grandmothers were good cooks and made delicious products. But that is not enough. How does the company create a system that is independent of a grandmother or a genius developer? Most people do not have the heirloom recipe or the flair and genius to whip up a winning product. The answer is process.

When we think of those times, we do not think of a structured new products process for food. Indeed, reading stories about the history of foods and beverage products, as e.g., in company's histories put out for public relations, we don't get a sense of process at all. The focus was entirely on the product, and some of the human interest stories attached to the product. Where there was process, that process was not formal. We get a feeling of the developer as an ‘artist’ or the developer as a normal housewife, creating the product, and somehow getting to stores, getting distribution, and growing the business.

By the 1970s, however, the world of management consultants had grown, and with that growth came the need to sell services. One of the most important of these services was ‘process’. At one level process really could help the company become streamlined and more efficient. At another level, however, designing and then implementing the process created a revenue stream for the management consultant, who could bill hours for ‘doing’, and not just bill hours for thinking and advising. It is always a better deal for a company to be paid for actions that take a while (weeks, months) than to be paid for simple consulting that is done in a day or two.

So we have the development of processes for new product development. Many of these processes emerged from the efforts of management consultants, rather than emerging organically from the efforts of corporations themselves to become more efficient and effective. That is, the processes were introduced into the company as basic structures, on which the company's own processes could grow in a designed direction. It is somewhat like the introduction of basic lattice structures on a broken bone, around which the cells can regenerate in the proper form.

People do not buy foods or eat foods ‘in a vacuum’. There is always some context, some situation. For many years marketers who identified opportunities for new foods have recognized that they must go beyond the normal methods to discover what consumers really want. When tracking studies became popular among consumer researchers in the 1960s it was all the rage to ask consumers about what more they wanted. The researcher could fold in these wishes to the tracking study, and present new opportunities to the marketer.

At the same time, however, qualitative researchers were asking people about what they wanted. Whether in focus groups or in-depth surveys, qualitative researchers were asking people to look inside themselves. These methods produced new ideas.

We now move from researcher-directed to consumer-directed. We reach the approach of the observation of behavior ‘in context’.

The histories of sensory analysis and marketing research show two groups of professionals, both competing for territory, both focusing on one area, product testing, both bringing to the contest unique weapons. The sensory professional, schooled in science, comes from the discipline of knowing the product. The person who evaluates the product is of secondary importance. What is primary is the product. One can almost call the subject or respondent the ‘bio-assay’. The exceptional focus on the product can be seen in the way that sensory professionals think about the problems they address in their tests. First and foremost is whether the test answers the technical problem, and gives guidance. The other factors, such as venue, nature of the respondent, even nature of the questions, are, of course, important, but they don't play the same role as played by the solution to a technical problem.

The market researcher comes to the contest with a different set of rules, a different intellectual history, and different needs. No one expects the market researcher to be an expert in the product itself. Rather, the market researcher positions himself as an expert on insights about the respondent, the consumer, the marketplace. Whether the respondent is testing a product or completing an attitude and usage questionnaire about the product, the market researcher brings the same set of skills to the study. Indeed, it is rare for market researchers to be able to point to any particular skill in product testing. It is the general world of consumers, not the particular world of the physical product, that interests the market researcher.

In years gone by, from ∼1970 to ∼2000, sensory and market research were content to operate separately. They rarely had to deal with each other because, in reality, they occupied different worlds. Sensory and marketing research might clash from time to time, but the clashes were restricted to consumer evaluation. The sensory professional wanted to move beyond expert panels and small, localized ‘guidance tests’, to larger consumer tests. When it comes to consumer tests, however, all too often the market researcher perceived this desire for growth by the sensory professional as a ‘land grab’, rather than as an earnest desire to expand one's horizons.

The rather different worlds inhabited by sensory and market research were occasionally noticed and remarked upon, more often by those in R&D, rarely by anyone in marketing.

During the end of last century, the sensory world kept to itself, dutifully ‘profiling’ products using the experts that were trained on the different test methods. No isolation lasts forever. As the 1990s rolled on, competition increased. The sensory practitioner was soon being asked to provide more guidance to the product developer, not so much from the expert panel, as from the consumer. It was at this time that the first real clashes occurred with the marketing researchers, who, up to then, were doing the large-scale tests with consumers. Up to the 1990s market researchers were content to work with sensory professionals. There was a tacit understanding between the two groups that the sensory professional might, on some occasions, work with consumers, but the work would be of very small scale, perhaps involving local consumers recruited in the neighborhood of the R&D lab that housed the sensory researchers. In any event, the consumer research that sensory researchers might do would be of the type called research guidance: small scale panels, ∼50 people, in the local area, to guide the product developer. In no way would the sensory person get into the product testing business in the way that the market researcher was.

Tacit agreements, a modus vivendi, and limiting one's reach, all have ways of disappearing over time. The corporation of the 1990s was facing different challenges from the same corporation 20 years before. In the 1970s, supporting an infrastructure of sensory professionals doing profiling work was acceptable, and even noteworthy when one could point to a spanking-new laboratory to house the sensory professional and his activities. The 1970s were still squarely in the wake of the recovery from World War II, when prices were stable, housing affordable, and competitors in the marketplace present, but not particularly threatening. By the 1990s that stability had gone away, and the corporations were fighting for customers, and often times for their lives. The world of the sensory professional and the world of the market researcher would change.

By the mid-1990s the 20 year silence between the sensory world and market research world was coming to an end. As the pace of product development quickened, companies began to move more quickly. The time for running large-scale descriptive studies of products to get their ‘footprint’ was coming to an end. Of course, the changes were not announced as such. Rather, the status quo was changing. It simply was not the norm to do extensive descriptive tests. The field of product testing was moving on. Sensory was changing, and in that change it would butt up against market research, as sensory sought new areas in which to function.

By the mid-1990s it was becoming clear that rapid consumer testing would become the more important part of the sensory professional's job, and that the business would demand that the sensory efforts should move towards a practical and measurable outcome. It was no longer sufficient to provide product developers with reams of output showing descriptive analysis tables and even ‘maps’ of products’ descriptive terms. Rather, the goal of sensory professionals was to provide actionable information to the company.

Disagreement and even open strife between the sensory department and the market research department was not long in coming. As sensory professionals began to position themselves as the low-cost supplier of product testing, they came into direct conflict with the market research department. Market researchers were accustomed to farming out, i.e., subcontracting, the research of products to external agencies. In order to survive and compete, the sensory department began to position itself in the corporation as the ‘lower cost supplier’. The sensory department was no longer merely the guardian of knowledge about the product from the sensory point of view, but rather was simultaneously a data provider with consumers.

Over time the positions of sensory professional and market researcher would be sorted out, leaving in its wake anger and suspicion of each other. To the market researcher the sensory department was an internal function, behaving like an interloper, usurping the job of market research, compromising and endangering the position of the market researcher in the company. To the sensory professional it was survival, the search for new areas, and the search for job security in an environment that had moved past the halcyon days of the 1970s and 1980s.

The sensory world is beginning to recognize a need to come together with market research. Some of the recognition is structural. Within the past 5 years or so, a great number of sensory professionals have lost their jobs. Whereas in years gone by the sensory professional could join a company, having been actively recruited, and look forward to a long and secure employment, that security is over and done with. Sensory professionals are as likely to be fired as anyone else in the corporation. There is no more comfortable, long-term employment in that field.

How then does this rapprochement happen, at least what are some early warning signals, because the coming together if it is happening, is just starting. No longer is the sensory professional talking about a seat at the table for the sensory professional, the need to be recognized, the need for its own corporate ‘lebensraum’, to quote a German war phrase. Rather, the talk in these meetings is about the practicalities of co-existence, about how some companies are ‘doing it right, now’, i.e., having sensory and marketing research work together. There is less and less talk about me versus them, about the conflict of sensory and marketing research, about who should win. There is talk about how the two professional groups must work together to create a good future.

What then is this future?

1. Sensory professionals will continue to do a great deal of their traditional work in descriptive analysis, but will not talk very much about that ‘bread and butter’ work. Descriptive analysis has lost a great deal of its luster. It is service work now, a way to survive, but certainly not the future. Furthermore, no one much cares about descriptive analysis in terms of forward-looking initiatives; it is more of a clerical job, rather than something perceived to move the business forward. At a practical level, this lowered value of descriptive is forcing the sensory professional to seek some other means to survive and win job security.

2. Sensory professionals will ‘lock up’ the corporate role of testing products created by R&D. Being close to the R&D world and having the ear of the product developer provides the sensory world with a very strong position here. Rather than going to market research for this early testing among consumers, for it is market research that traditionally heard the consumer's voice, it is now the sensory professional in the company or on contract that will have this responsibility. Market research ‘lost’ that battle, or perhaps more diplomatically, ceded that ground.

3. Sensory professionals are looking for, and will continue to be looking for, new ways to understand the consumer. These new ways include ethnography, the observation of consumers ‘in context’, and biometric measurement of consumer responses to foods. In these new areas, also being investigated by market research, we may see a coming together of the two fields. Neither sensory nor market research has sufficient experience in these new areas to claim them as part of the professional ‘patrimony’. With the corporation demanding greater returns on research, these new areas of understanding the consumer allow the two fields to work together in order to survive the rocky seas of competition that shake the corporation from time to time.

4. Finally, in about 10 years or so, as the cooperation between sensory and market research increases, and as both sensory and market research evolve towards ‘insights’ rather than just the testing function, we may expect to see a de facto, if not formal, merging of the two departments, primarily as a cost-saving move. There will be no need for two separate departments providing insights about the consumer, when a more efficient, cost effective, single department can do the job.