Typically, consumer flavour testing is conducted using a structured questionnaire. In general, Asian consumers tend to be relatively reserved and polite in their responses in some countries. We therefore collaborated in a neuro-physiological study making use of EEG, heart rate, and skin conductance, to evaluate consumers' flavour preferences more objectively for flavour development. The study was conducted among female consumers in Jakarta and physiological measurement has helped to reveal the underlying emotional responses of the consumers for two of the most preferred test flavours. This research demonstrates that we can further sensitively measure how different flavours elicit different emotions, providing further insights on how to optimise flavours to maximise consumer preference.
This paper discusses in practical terms the problems which can affect research in the area of product optimisation and flavour development, as viewed from the standpoint of an agency researcher specialising in food and drink research. The conventional approach to product development tends to rely on consumer tests, such as product placement or taste tests, to identify perceived strengths and weaknesses of the product via rating scales and spontaneous comments. This information is used by technical personnel to guide product development, and one or two new formulations are subsequently tested and, if 'better', they are progressed. At best this approach will identify a possible product improvement, but at its worst it can be unproductive as technical personnel struggle to achieve viable improvements. The weakness underlying this approach is that it assumes a direct relationship between a product formulation and the consumer response to it: there is no such relationship. I will go on to explain why this is so. I argue, therefore, that the use of consumer opinions, as expressed via rating scales and spontaneous comments, to guide product reformulation, is unsatisfactory. We should instead ask the consumers to do only what they are really competent to do: to say how much they like something, and perhaps to say which product they prefer. This determines that we must identify the factors to assess in the research and to test these systematically and in a controlled way. I will go on to give examples of how this can be done. It should be noted that I will not attempt to discuss specific aspects of product testing, such as the difference between blind and branded tests, nor the merits of various types of semantic rating scales. The argument I present is concerned with product development and as such does not touch on other types of research such as concept and placement tests - within these limits, however, I feel the ideas I present are valid across a range of product types and situations, and do not depend on very specific aspects of detail research design.
This paper discusses one approach in bridging the communication gap between consumers and technical experts. Despite being a fairly simple product to manufacture, beer is a very complex tasting product. Consumer taste test results have historically been very weak in providing brewers with any actionable direction beyond preference. This weakness lies in the fact that brewers and experts use a different language to describe the taste in beer. Consumer descriptors are usually very general in nature and lack the specificity and flavour note focus that are used by brewers. Historically, our probing of consumers with focus groups and scouring open ends of questionnaires has provided very little to understanding technically what a consumer "likes" about his beer. The descriptors are just too loose to effectively provide guidance to brewing a better liquid. To further complicate matters, a word like "sweeter" does not mean the same thing from respondent to respondent. Expert brewer tasters, for their part, deal in descriptive terms that summarize complex sensory effects and are so technical that only other technical experts can agree or disagree on their presence. Because of this gap in the use of terms, descriptors and meaning, a very large communication gap has existed between consumers and brewers. Our Molson approach not only considered the technical problems but the organizational ones as well. Individuals were assigned from Marketing and Production to be accountable for consumer driven product design. This overall strategic approach has allowed each function to share in their expertise towards a common goal. It avoided the traditional conflict that arises when a master brewer pronounces his liquid as a "crowning achievement" only to have Marketing, through the untrained consumer, say it is not competitive.