Services to business
Sensory evaluation and benchmarking
The Centre offers a range of sensory analysis, benchmarking and consumer studies for food and drink products, utilising a pool of trained sensory panellists. The team has experience of working with major retailers and food manufacturers to assess product acceptability for appearance, colour, aroma, taste and texture.
Our dedicated specialist sensory suite facilities enable us to carry out sensory evaluation work in the following areas
- product and process developments
- troubleshooting of product and process problems
- product comparisons
- benchmarking
- shelf-life evaluations
- quality control: batch testing
In addition, our stable micro system texture analyser means we can measure quantitatively textured differences in foods, including
- hardness
- cohesiveness
- adhesiveness
- springiness
- chewiness
- gumminess
These measurements are useful in shelf-life testing, cooking trials, product and process development and quality control, and results may be linked to sensory evaluation data.
