Sensory professionals’ perspective on the possibilities of using facial expression analysis in sensory and consumer research

Abstract

The food industries are facing new demands on skills and knowledge due to an increase in digitalization. The employers have reported difficulties predicting the required skills and competencies, and graduates do not fully meet their expectations and requirements for a rapidly changing sector (Flynn et al., 2013;Weston et al., 2019).When working with digital technologies and data rather than traditional measures of products, new expectations for sensory professionals are likely to emerge, which challenge the traditional skills in sensory and consumer research. However, there is limited knowledge on food sensory professionals' perspective of work changes and necessary skills. Since digitalization has widened the variety of sensory methods to be performed by the sensory professionals,