Key sensory attributes and visual and flavour references for sensory assessment of PDO Mozzarella di Bufala cheese

F. Sinesio, E. Moneta, M. Peparaio, F.J. Comendador

Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca per gli Alimenti e la Nutrizione (INRAN), Italy

 sinesioinran.it

The work is part of a project which general objective is the characterization and valorisation of PDO Mozzarella di Bufala cheese exploring sensory quality variation in the production and factors (technological, zoo-technical, etc.) affecting such variation.

The study here presented focuses on two main aims, that is to understand the attributes that characterise the typicality of this cheese, exploring the particular properties associated to the territory of the Protected Designation of Origin; and to create formulae for calibration samples to be used during the process of panel training.

A standardized descriptive language for this cheese was developed. A lexicon was initially identified from a large sample set with descriptive analysis of the products. Following the generation of the preliminary lexicon a highly trained descriptive panel (n=12) refined the developed language. During training panellists were presented with and evaluated potential references. Through individual assessments, followed by group discussions, panellist selected the best references to represent the identified descriptive terms and to fix intensity anchors on the evaluation scales. Thirty descriptors were identified, of which 11 visual, 9 flavours, 4 tastes and 6 texture attributes. For visual parameters pictorial standard were produced to anchor specific points of the evaluation scales. For flavour/taste parameters the calibration samples were prepared by spiking test food with certain taste flavour compounds or using model systems with mixtures of low and high concentrations of taste and odour compounds.

A set of 123 dairy farms was selected and samples purchased from producers and assessed each of these samples twice over the period May - September 2004.

Results revealed high heterogeneity of the products’ sensory profiles: there were flavours common to all the cheese samples whereas other flavours were specific to products of particular area of production.

Key words: Protected Designation of Origin, sensory properties, flavour references