S. Glassl, A. Scharf
University of Applied Sciences Nordhausen, Germany
in cooperation with Rotkäppchen-Mumm Sektkellereien (Nordbrand Nordhausen), Germany

Several studies have proven the applicability of Flash Profiling and Free-Choice Profil­ing as fast and inexpensive Descriptive Methods to get insights into the percep­tion of foods. Nevertheless, some problems are unsolved so far: The interpretation depends on subjective experience of the analyst and a statistical calibration with con­sumer acceptance data is difficult because no mean descriptive profiles can be calcu­lated. Furthermore there is no attention to possible influences and interactions between odour- and taste-stimuli which result in discrepancy.

Flash Profiling has been applied for the first time concerning olfactory perception of food with a slightly modified approach in line of measuring cognitive data. The inten­sity of sensory descriptors has been measured descriptor-by-descriptor and not product by product as preferred by traditional methods. This means that product samples had to be directly compared in view of a sensory descriptor. The major difference to conven­tional Flash Profiling is the acquisition of olfactory perception by similarity compari­sons instead of intensities. Due to the particularities in perception and processing of olfactory product information, modified Flash Profiling is appropriate to measure this sensory impression. For gustatory sensation of cordials it is practicable to use the Free-Choice Profiling. A data linkage with consumer acceptance has been carried out, re­vealing the preference driving and clamming odour and taste components. The main purpose of this modified Flash Profiling and Free-Choice Profiling analyses was the objective acquisition of olfactory or rather gustatory characteristics from eight cor­dials. It had to be verified, whether widely un­trained persons are able to create reliable, valid profiles and to discriminate between heterogeneous products.

The collected data of these two methods are unstructured and indefinite so it needs to be compressed by several statistical procedures to receive an applied overview. Moreover, the Profiling procedures provide no information about im­pellent or inhibit acceptance components. To gather relevant information for marketing or R&D, it is necessary to connect descrip­tive data with affective consumer acceptance data in laboratory tests. For these pur­poses a laboratory test with 100 cordial consum­ers has been carried out. Based on the data derived from the multivariate linkage no generally accepted cordial was dis­tinguished. In fact various segments had been identified. For each of these segments impellent and inhibit odour and taste compo­nents could be determined.
A comparison between odour and taste outcome provide an additional insight with ref­erence to the identification of possible dis­crepant characteristics of a product.

Considering all re­sults of the research project, modified Flash Profiling and Free-Choice Profiling can be easily used to get a survey about olfactory and gustatory per­ception structures of users consuming one specific product type. The main advantage is the fast, inexpensive and integral way for data ascertainment.