Sweet taste of success

Press, 26 December 1979, Page 8

Sweet taste of success

American children will soon be munching scientifically designed sweets. To find flavours which will capture their hearts (via their stomachs), a leading American firm is now creating new recipes with the help of a technique called •‘flavour profile.” A flavour profile, devel-

oped by the consultancy firm of Arthur D. little Inc (A.D.L.), provides an “objective” measure of flavour (or, for that matter, fragrance). That makes it easier to tell what effect a change in processing, or gredients, has on the taste of a food or drink. It then becomes- possible

to correlate the subjective and often vague comments of consumers to a standardised measure of the product’s actual taste. Lyrical off-the-cuff descriptions may make good advertising copy, but they are not a tool for analysing flavours. Producing an “objective” analysis is the job of a panel of trained tasters. When presented with a sample they nibble, discuss the taste and compare it with “reference flavours” (such as a sugar solution of known concentration). Then they write a carefully-worded description of the texture, bouquet. and fullness of the sample as well as the individual flavours which

they think make up that over-all impression. Crucial to the success of the method is the long training- given to the panellists in sensitivity to flavour and the use of a precise, consistent, descriptive vocabulary. The goal is reproducibility: different panels should get equivalent results. So far, A.D.L. has used its flavour-fragrance profile technique for such varied tasks as developing less offensively smelly diesel engines and studying the taste effects of food additives. For $50,000$150,000, A.D.L. will combine flavour analysis with consumer polls to find out eactly what people do not like about a product (such as cereals, wine or beer) and how to remedy it.