Sensory & consumer science

Science programme: Sensory & consumer science

Our work focuses on understanding and predicting future global consumer, market and technology trends. Sensory evaluation of flavour, texture and taste is a core requirement for HortResearch-owned germplasm, and in the creation of new innovative foods.

Our consumer and sensory science programme provides the potential for many new developments through its links to human physiology.

At HortResearch’s Sensory and Consumer Science facility we conduct innovative and well-established consumer tests. We have nationally recognised expertise in evaluating consumers’ perceptions of new technologies, such as irradiation and genetically modified organisms. Our research develops improved ways of evaluating consumers’ preferences and acceptability of food and beverage products. It includes a determination of the monetary value consumers place on product using experimental markets. We also facilitate focus groups to gather qualitative information about new products, packages or ideas. These tools can be utilised by industry to streamline product development.

The facility in Auckland is a fully equipped laboratory set up to assess a variety of foods and beverages. It includes training rooms, a well-equipped preparation room/kitchen, and eighteen individual booths with computerised data entry capability and adjustable lighting for evaluation of products that require colour difference masking. With 18 booths, 50 consumers can easily be tested in one day.

Our capabilities include:

• Conducting consumer preference and acceptability of new or reformulated products
• A well-established trained panel that is utilised to evaluate storage products and product matching
• The ability to conduct ethnic or age specific panels
• Expertise in preference mapping that incorporates specific details of product attributes from our trained panel and correlates them with products preferred by the consumer
• Consultations with companies to assist with the set up of in-house sensory testing
• Facilitation of focus groups to gather qualitative information about new products.

Our experienced panellists can serve as human instruments for profiling and objective measurement of the sensory attributes of foods and beverages. These include flavour characteristics, textural attributes and others related to appearance and sound, all of which contribute to defining the quality parameters of individual products. Trained panels are useful for measuring the effects of ingredients or processing changes, taints and for product matching.

Sensory evaluation is a powerful scientific tool that provides correlation of sensory attributes with instrumental measurements of attributes used to measure product quality. Trained panel data can be correlated with consumers’ preferences and acceptability (preference mapping) to determine optimum product attributes for desired markets. Preference mapping provides valuable information to product developers and process technologists in terms of identifying those quality factors that actually drive consumer acceptability and preference for a particular product.

Our sensory science team has four main commercial activities:

• "One-off" consumer studies for food industries
• Shelf life testing for food and packaging materials
• Devising plans for industry to set up their in-house sensory testing
• Claim substantiation for olive oil including verification of extra virgin claims. HortResearch has a trained panel that uses the International Olive Oil Council standards for extra virgin olive oil.

Our clients include:

• Fonterra
• Zespri
• Wine industry
• Olive oil industry
• Pipfruit industry
• Olivado (avocado oil)
• Cerebos Gregg
• Colmar Brunton.

We collaborate with the University of Auckland, Massey University, Lincoln University and Crop and Food Research.

For a better understanding of our research, we recommend the following documents:

F.R. Harker, R.L. Amos, G. Echeverria, F.A. Gunson. (2006). Influence of texture on taste: Insights gained during studies of hardness, juiciness and sweetness of apple fruit.  Journal of Food Science. 71:77-82.

Jaeger S.R., Harker, F.R. (2005).  Consumer evaluation of novel kiwifruit: willingness to pay .  J. Sci. Food Agric. 85, 2519-2526.

W. V. Wismer, F.R. Harker, F.A. Gunson, K.L. Rossiter, K. Lau, A.G. Seal, R.G. Lowe, R. Beatson. (2005).  Identifying flavour targets for fruit breeding: a kiwifruit example .  Euphytica 141:93-104.

F.R. Harker (2004). Organic food claims cannot be substantiated through testing of samples intercepted in the marketplace: a horticulturalist’s opinion . Food Quality and Preference, 15: 91-95.

F.R. Harker, F.A. Gunson, S.R. Jaeger (2003). The case for fruit quality: an interpretive review of consumer attitudes, and preferences for apples . Postharvest Biol. Technol. 28: 333-347
S.R. Jaeger (2003) Innovation in the fruit industry: need for convenience. Food Australia 55(4) 129-132.

Contact Roger Harker