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Background and challenges

The sensory properties of foods and their appreciation by consumers are absent from food databases. If reformulations are aimed at environmental and nutritional benefits, it is necessary to ensure that reformulated products remain acceptable from a sensory point of view for consumers, to ensure consumer adherence to this food transition.

Goals

This project has a two-fold methodological and scientific objective.

The first methodological objective is to evaluate different methods for the constitution of databases on the sensory perception and appreciation of the food offer and to propose a functional integration. This is a proof of concept that will be carried out on 3 food categories (chocolate chip cookies, sliced bread and pizza). The bases produced will be representative of the French market in terms of nutrition, environment and degree of processing. The second methodological objective is to automate the calculation of the processing score from the available databases in the form of a computer application that could be used by a large community of actors (scientists, producers, processors, merchants). This is a necessary condition for linking processing data with nutritional, environmental and sensory data on a large scale.

The project also has a preliminary scientific objective, which is to provide experimental evidence that positive sensory information promotes consumer choices that are more beneficial to health and the environment. Secondly, the main scientific objective of the project is to use the sensory bases created on the three food categories to relate the sensory dimensions to the nutritional and environmental dimensions and the degree of processing. It will seek to characterise the tensions and synergies between these different dimensions and identify the value areas in which they converge, i.e. the areas in which products can be considered better in sensory, environmental, nutritional and process terms. Finally, the project will attempt to integrate sensory indicators into an overall robust indicator that would consist of enhancing nutritional, environmental and processing qualities conditional on a minimum sensory quality to ensure consumer acceptability. Such an index would obviously be valuable for consumers, but also for commercial sites and for a more virtuous industrial reformulation of food products.

INRAE units involved

• Centre des sciences du goût et de l'alimentation
• Food and Bioproduct Engineering Research unit
• Sécurité et qualité des produits d'origine végétale