New findings - research blog
ESN members and ESN industry partners are involved in a variety of research activities. Here we present highlights of their recent findings as well as interviews with ESN experts on selected topics. On the right you can scroll through the different categories. Did you know that our first blog post is from 1992?
An ESN-funded study finds an advantage of home testing compared to lab testing.
How the analysis of emotions elicited by odours help to design better products. Interview with Christelle Porcherot, Principal Scientist at Corporate R&D Division at ESN partner Firmenich.
Food that is designed for different eating styles could prevent people from overeating
Marleen Chambaults (Campden BRI, UK) talks about novel consumer methods for product characterization.
The European Sensory Network ESN has conducted a research program to evaluate the role of virtual and immersive reality in sensory testing.
A study spanning five continents shows that people the world over associate food and feeling good with ’tastes good’.
Valérie Lengard Almli taks about a new method to measure the sense of taste in small children.
New research from ESN member BOKU illustrates why expectation and perception don´t always match.
Nine ESN members came together to test a new method: the Temporal Drivers of Liking (TDL). The results have been published in Food Research International. TDL is a new tool in the box of sensory analysts.
Maurice O´Sullivan about talks about his new book “A Handbook for Sensory and Consumer-Driven New Product Development”.
Lise Dreyfuss talks about the ConsumerFacets test and how to use it for sensory research.
How to make ready-made meal packages more attractive for older consumers.
Video: Nancy Holthuysen talks about her new publication
A new study by Lukas Danner, European Sensory Network member Klaus Duerrschmid and colleagues shines a light on the association of certain odours with distinct age groups.
A study from the Monell Center suggests palatable tastes do not drive long-term overeating.
Ludovic Depoortere talks about the role of mobile and virtual reality devices for sensory and consumer research.
Klaus Dürrschmid gives an inside view into his research on implicit measurements of food choice.
How can sensory science lead to more food security in developing countries? Listen to a video interview with Prof. Riette de Kock, University of Pretoria & research chair of the European Sensory Network.
Foods that are more - or less - delicious than we expect can also cause mood changes
Claire-Sulmont-Rossé gives an overview of the sense of smell and taste in the aging, as well as an insight into her research.
Our sense of smell and taste declines with age. Yet not everyone is affected on the same level.
The sense of smell functions differently than the sense of vision. Yet for decades odor perception has been measured with the same techniques as visual perception. Ep Köster proposes a different approach.
What do facial expressions, eye tracking, and the autonomous nervous system reveal? Observational methods offer new possibilities for consumer research.
Interview with Eliza Kostyra. At the Warsaw University of Life Sciences, children and youngsters from different age groups are.
A new easily applied and quickly realizable All-In-One test allows sensory researchers to conduct rapid product tests under natural ...
Using the Temporal Dominance of Sensations (TDS) method, the tasting experience that develops over a longer period can be traced. In this way it is possible to comprehend aspects that are not reflected ...
By now, Stevia is being talked about as a natural sweetener, but not in the sense that it is “on everyone’s lips”. The food industry is still ...
Icelandic researchers have found that sensory preconceptions spoil the appetite for fish, but this prejudice can be counteracted.
The memory of tastes and smells functions fundamentally differently than visual memory. To better understand the characteristics of memory for ...
In a qualitative survey, researchers from the Campden & Chorleywood Food Research Association Group, Gloucestershire, England, explored ...
“Ugh, blah! That tastes terrible!” When you can see the person’s face as he eats, such exclamations are usually superfluous. Such spontaneous ...
“More aroma, less salt” – this straight-forward formula is the result of a French study. European Sensory Network researchers examined a ...
Can children be taught to become gourmets? The connoisseur country of France has a sensory education program for 8 to ...
Hot, fiery tasting foods are becoming more and more popular. However, up until now there has been little research on these kinds of chemesthetic ...
Sensory attributes and health-related product information are both important aspects of the consumers’ food choice. How do these ...
Memories of earlier experiences are a major factor in our decisions as to what we eat and what we don’t eat. They also play a central role as to whether or not ...
Dutch sensory and consumer research experts ascertain the psychological influences of cut flowers on people.
Market researchers of the French company ADRIANT®, a member of the European Sensory Network, have developed a method that easily allows to ...
What sort of housewife buys only canned food? Would you rather like to go have coffee with a man who fills his shopping cart with frozen pizza and canned beer or ...
Two recent sensory studies conducted by the Icelandic and Norwegian members of the European Sensory Network (ESN) examine consumer and food experts’ quality ratings of cod and salmon.
In this era of globalisation it has become more and more necessary to develop products that are accepted by consumers in both the domestic and the international markets. For this reason, intercultural sensory studies are ...
Despite the overabundance of offers on today’s grocery shelves, most consumers decide whether or not to buy a product within seconds after glancing at the assortments. To be successful, a product must ...
Packages should protect the contents, but sometimes they do this almost too well – namely when the consumer either cannot open the package or can do so only with extreme difficulty. This is especially a problem...
Interview with Ciarán Forde. Highly trained sensory panels are expected to work with machine-like proficiency. To ensure this ...
Many elderly people have problems chewing and swallowing. Researchers at the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology (SIK) ...
What is the image of ready meals and the consumers who buy them? What are the situations in which consumers typically choose this quick alternative, and what are the reasons ...
The question as to whether a fish is fresh can be more easily judged by human senses than by technical devices.
Consumers could soon be enjoying macadamias that are tastier and more appealing than ever with new market research identifying what helps make a perfect macadamia and how to create it ...
A German sensory research institute has made a new European survey mapping out various taste characteristics of European beers.
Sensory experts from the Faculty of Human Nutrition and Consumer Sciences at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences have ventured into ...
There is wide-ranging contrast in the way young Russian consumers rate Western products. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain and the consequent freeing-up of the market place, Russian consumers have ...
In addition to wheat-based products, the flavour of oat and rye products may be optimised by using sophisticated processing methods.
Bridging the gap between objective product qualities and the consumer’s complex desires and needs
Unfortunately sampling a product is seldom possible in today's market place. Trying to pick the desired bread out of the vast assortment of choices is not easy and is often a matter of luck. One of the biggest ...
The Norwegian ESN member MATFORSK is collaborating with the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and the Royal Veterinary ...
Italian durum wheat grain, the basic ingredient in the production of pasta, is cultivated mainly in southern Italy. In this area, this grain is also becoming popular in the making of bread and other baked goods.
The European Sensory Network is celebrating the 75th birthday of its co-founder and scientific advisor Egon P. Köster, sensory expert and Professor emeritus of Experimental Psychology.
Interview with EP Köster. The consumer should be viewed as a variety of personalities that react differently in different situations.
Interview with Anne Goldman. The sensory function today is an integral part of a successful business model, recognized for it’s supportive role to the product life cycle.
Functional foods are foods with additional positive health effects. Do consumers really focus on these advantages when deciding which product to buy, and consequently do they prefer functional foods ...
The English version of the training DVD “Sensory Evaluation in the Innovation Process” is now available.
Men like to sink their teeth into a good rare steak, while women prefer well-done white meat or vegetarian food. What sounds like ...
Many factors influence the complex process by which the brain decides whether or not it likes a certain taste. For instance, most people have had the experience ...
Medicine does not have to taste good to work! Doctors and pharmacists have long held on to this belief. Unfortunately, the idea that "as long as the patient trusts the doctor ...
The European Union, with the participation of members from the European Sensory Network recently conducted the project "Eurosalmon" to discern which sorts of ...
How much more is "like extremely" than "like very much" and how much less is "dislike moderately" compared to "dislike slightly"?
Texture - the totality of all palpable or tactile qualities - as opposed to other properties such as visual appearance, odor, and in some cases taste - is a very important feature which influences the acceptance of such products as e.g. margarine, mayonnaise and ice-cream. It is the result of different ingredients and the way in which those ingredients are combined and processed to form a given...
The vast North American market place offers a seemingly unlimited array of selling opportunities for European products. There is cultural ...
To a certain extent, consumers are influenced by conscious, rational factors. However, emotional factors, often subconscious, can have a much greater effect on their choice.
Focus groups are widely used for research studies in such fields as social sciences, product development, and marketing research. However, reviewers have yet ...
There is a marked difference in the expectations of German, French and Italian consumers regarding Emmentaler cheese.
In the last years, citizens of the European Union have been plagued by several food scandals of which the BSE scandal was the most dramatic. The European Commission has become more ...
Consumers judge foods differently when they are left solely to their taste impressions than when they are also given the brand name of the product.
When choosing among similar products, consumers seem to rely more on their personal taste than on brands or quality-seals.
During the 40 years of separation, the people of East and West Germany had become accustomed to different food products. Two years after the fall of the Berlin wall ...