A case study in relating sensory descriptive data to product concept fit and consumer vocabulary

Consumer freshness perceptions of breads, biscuits and cakes

“…The sensory characteristic buttery flavour was positively correlated with the freshest breads and cakes. Carr et al (2001), showed that the greatest similarities between consumer and sensory vocabularies occurred for commonly understood attributes such as sweetness, overall flavour and crunchy/crisp texture. Comparison of the two sets of vocabularies in our study revealed that specific odour, taste and textural cues that consumers associated with product freshness could also be applied to differentiate the same products cognitively by a trained panel.…”

“…In particular, consumer perceptions of freshness in apples (Peneau, Brockhoff, Hoehn, Escher, & Nuessli, 2007;Peneau et al, 2006); creaminess in dairy products (Richardson-Harman et al, 2000;Tournier, Martin, Guichard, Issanchou, & Sulmont-Rosse, 2007) and refreshing in gel model systems (Labbe, Gilbert, Antille, & Martin, 2009), have been studied using descriptive sensory analysis in parallel with consumer research, and by relating data using multivariate techniques. According to Carr, Craig-Petsinger, and Hadlich (2001) relationships between consumer descriptions of products and their sensory character provide a valuable insight into understanding how consumers perceive complex product image attributes such as wholesome, comforting and sophisticated. Moreover, Roininen, Arvola, and Lahteenmaki (2006) demonstrated that consumers' perception of foods can be defined by word association techniques when combined with scored responses.…”

An original methodology for the analysis and interpretation of word-count based methods: Multiple factor analysis for contingency tables complemented by consensual words

“…These methods aim at understanding the consumers' sensory perceptions through collecting the product descriptions from the consumer's own vocabulary (Antmann et al, 2011;Carr, Craig-Petsinger, & Hadlich, 2001). They are usually encoded into a products  words frequency table, called lexical table.…”

Effects of sensory labels on taste acceptance of commercial food products

“…However it is not sufficient for predicting consumers' responses to commercially available products. Various combined methods of branded tests have consequently been suggested to estimate consumer's integrated reactions to both intrinsic information including sensory or affective labels (Acebron & Dopico, 2000;Beriain, Sanchez, & Carr, 2009;Cardello & Sawyer, 1992;Carr, Craig-Petsinger, & Hadlich, 2001;Wansink, Painter, & Ittersum, 2001 and extrinsic information including nutritional benefits, country of origin, ingredients, brand, price and so on (Caporale, Policasto, Carlucci, & Monteleone, 2006;Carneiro et al, 2005;Enneking, Neumann, & Henneberg, 2007;Goerlitz & Delwiche, 2004;Kahkonen, Tuorila, & Rita, 1996;Kahkonen, Tuorila, & Lawless, 1997;Mueller & Szolnoki, 2010;Wansink, 2003;Wansink & Park, 2002). Making an attractive sensory label for a product is an important and difficult undertaking.…”