Abstract:

Flavours and fragrances are important ingredients in a large range of consumable products. If such products are to be successful, it is important that these aspects are not only optimised sensorially for different segments of the international community but are in harmony with potential customers functional and imagery concepts of the products within these segments. Utilising free choice profiling approaches, product maps, showing how different flavours and fragrances are being perceived in a particular product, in both real and imagery terms, can be produced, without the need for formal vocabularies. Requiring minimum training and being language independent, it consequently opens up the possibility of getting both perceptual and associated descriptive information directly from the consumer, (information which is bound to provide a more meaningful interpretation of consumer acceptance than that derived from in house panels). It also permits one to compare flavour and fragrance perceptions by consumers, (product producer, retailer or TRUE consumer) with in house personnel, (product development scientist, trained panellist, flavourists, perfumer or sales persons) finding out just how these people are assessing the products. The language independent aspects of the procedure means product perceptions in different countries and by different races can also be compared.