Abstract:

Flavour plays a key role in the market acceptance of all food and beverage products, and especially in the market acceptance of beer. This paper describes a program of research being undertaken by a major international brewer to develop an integrated set of mathematical flavour model describing consumer preferences for beer products and to create an associated decision support system so marketing and brewing personnel can make effective use of the models. The research is presently in progress so the paper reports on the work completed to date and outlines the direction that future work is expected to take. Four models are to be developed. The paper gives considerable detail about the first model as this model has been implemented and there is some experience with it.