IRTA’s Sensory Analysis Service covers a wide field of activity based at the centres located in Lleida and Monells. Both centres are equipped with the appropriate facilities in order to provide market solutions to the companies that require it.
RESOURCES
♦ Technical
- Pilot and industrial scale processing plants and facilities.
- Showroom (product exhibition area).
- Physicochemical and microbiological laboratories.
- Standardized tasting rooms.
- Market and consumer studies databases.
♦ Human
- Teams of experienced researchers.
- Trained and expert taster panels in all types of food matrices.
- Consumers for market studies.
UTILITIES
IRTA’s Sensory Analysis has been designed as a scientific discipline to define, to measure, to analyze and to interpret, objectively and reproducibly, the attributes of a product by the use of the human senses. It is applied to:
- Quantitative descriptions of products (quantitative descriptive profiles).
- Determining whether the effect of changes in formulation, production and/or preservation are sensory perceptible or not.
- Quality control in fresh and processed products (e.g. Determination of the boar taint in pork meat and pork meat products, rancidity in nuts, mealiness in apples, etc.) and comparison of a product against the market leader.
- Studying the shelf-life from a sensory point of view:
Loss of sensory quality: identify the moment that the commercialized product/food loses its sensory characteristics and, as a result, when consumer acceptability could decrease.
Alteration of certain attributes which distinguish the product and are used as a marketing tool. - Identifying similarities and differences of the product comparing it to similar competing products.
IRTA SERVICES
- Selection programmes and training of testing panels for agri-food companies.
- Training and retraining in sensory analysis addressed to experts and those responsible for testing panels.
- Counselling in the application of statistical techniques for data analysis (tasters and consumers).
- Design and execution of sensory tests and interpretation of results.
APPLICATIONS
- Sensory characterization.
- Product development and marketing strategies.
- Product shelf-life determination.
- Product market classification.
