Sat, 17 Dec 2005 23:26:40 GMT in

>>>Alex Rast wrote


>>In many product development based sensory analysis the consumer panel
>>is just taken secondarily ...
>>The developers already had in mind what the customers wants and the
>>consumer panel is used often for confirmatory purposes.

....


>That is a narrow perspective about confectionery related R&D.
>...
>Food product developments is not like theoretical physics...looking
>for the fundamental structure of matter . but 100% applied
>science...based on the customers wants and needs!


>I'm actually not disputing the process of R&D as such. Nor do I think
>customers should be the sole source of new product ideas.

An ordinary customers cannot think in clear structured manne nor
know how to think in technical terms r what are their desires that can
be immediately transferred into the laboratory to be used to create a
product.
Often their demands are unrealistic and the food designer must find s
compromise so that the product will be practical to manufacture.

>I focus on the line "the developers already had in mind what the customers
>wants..."

Its difficult to explain to an individual who had never experienced
being deeply involved in actual research and development work to
understand the minds of an innovative person doing such demanding job.
Outsiders always think of food researchers as like mad scientists
doing strange experiments whose works were motivated by conceit (or
burning desire to be recognized ,) and have have forgotten the real
world...<grin>Which is not true...
First an foremost in applied food research you have a practical goal ,
there fore you have to base all your studies in your particular
specialty on real food that the customers wants.
Not on what caught your fancy....He or she keeps in mind that just
like any worker in any industry his or her wage ultimately comes from
the customers therefore they are obliged to do a job that pleases them.

>Essentially, all that R&D is for nothing if at the end of the day it's not
>a product that in actual fact consumers appreciate. Even with pretty
>exhaustive R&D, therefore, you cannot assume that a product will be well-
>received, and thus a panel must not be used for "confirmatory" purposes,
>but rather for exploratory purposes. In other words, come in expecting
>nothing. The customers might like it, or they might not. So when devising
>the panel, the directive to the research firm cannot be "here's this
>product that we think people are going to like and we want you to determine
>where its market will be", or worse still "here's a product that we think
>people will like and we want you to develop the statistics to show people
>how good it is and get them pre-sold so we can develop an effective
>marketing campaign". No, it must be "Here's a product. How much do people
>like it? That's what we want you to find out."




As I how I see it you have a chef mentality and it had been my
experience dealing with a lot of kitchen and bakery people as I had
worked in that area for long time in a technical positions also.
An executive chef, and any other kind of chef differs only from the
kitchen hand bakery helper in the nature of the skills but their
perspective s are pretty much the same,; narrow minded folks whose
passions and huge ego dominates their reasoning powers .
In many cases.
The higher their position in the kitchen, the bigger is their
egos<sigh>.
Not the kind of reasonable people that I would like to talk to for a
long time without rankling their frail self identity. Therefore I
cannot expect from them impartiality and to look at the culinary
issues from a 'clinical' mindset.

Any person who had been in food science for a long time, look at
ingredients in a clinical fashion, similar to a doctor who operates a
patient; its not because his patient is pretty , and sexy that he
pours more attention to it than an ugly women.
He treats them equally; and that is the view that I had;
Nothing is best.... its relative to the purpose that ingredients is to
be used for.
What counts is if fits the specification you are looking for ; if it
not how you can possibly tweak the formulations so that particular
ingredient can fit.
But from the scientific point of view, nothing is best... its relative
to what is used for.
Besides ....
You are only assuming that food designers are just too focused on the
technical aspects and had forgotten the customers in mind.
If that had been the case the result of new product development in the
food industry will never result in goods that will be unmarketable or
wanted by the consumer.

>Where a firm makes a mistake is when they think that it's only a matter of
>what marketing spin they put on a product that determines how well it's
>going to sell - they need to look at the customer base not just as a test-
>bed for sales concepts but also as a source of product feedback early in
>the development cycle.

Product feedback is ever existent in the development cycle and much
background research is also done how that new material will satisfy the
customer.
It is just a complex process that the people uninitiated in R& D
methodology had difficulty in grasping its essence (or much more)
completely understanding it.
Therefore in many cases when the product is launched its likely to
succeed although there are exceptions as well.

>>...Well it had been my experience that many Europeans chocolate
>>connoisseurs don't like American chocolates.

>>I think there's a risk of characterising "American chocolates" far too
>>broadly. Just like any other country, the styles of different U.S.
>>manufacturers varies widely. Guittard is generally balanced and on the
>>dark side, Scharffen Berger is fruity, bright, and smooth, Ghirardelli
>>is very dark, and well-finished, Hershey's tends to be sweet and
>>relatively bland...




>Do you mean you cannot *confirm* that - i.e. that you don't know pro or con
>the position of different American manufacturers?

Every product from every country had its so called pro and con....but
if you are outside America what you hear is the bad side of American
goods and less of the good side<grin>.If I travel outside Europe say to
the southern hemisphere; people there talk about that many American
made food stuff are overrated and expensive . But it was never the
same from products made in Europe. In particular Germany Switzerland
UK Scandinavia etc. although in many cases its as pricey.

I travel a lot and I don't stay in one continent for a long time
that is maybe the reason that I don't have the attachment to American
made products but I feel the same with product from other countries .
One thing also I have been in R&D circuit for more than two decades
starting from the bakery and I had used myriads of ingredients but I
was unable to have a certain fancy for one. I know them well for their
utilitarian and true purpose, functionality.
When ever a new product succeed under my direction, some people ask me
what is your special ingredients and do you really like that material
that made your product give your employers good economic returns and
reputation?
Not really they are like workers that I employed to get the job
done<grin>....an ingredient is just like the structural materials of a
house you are planning to build...you look for the functionality and
not that its looks good , well known expensive and have class so it
should reflect on the quality of your building....
It its not that way...
You combine different ingredient that best exhibit the qualities you
want from a product and certainly you will get what you desire for.
You don't look at the brand of the ingredients but the nature of its
specifications as the basis of the decision.
To be a good developer you should have that impartiality so that you
can think straight with no bias against any of the material you use.
The central focus is the product outcome.
If you have that kind of preference....then you are becoming subjective
in your decision not objective and you product development projects
lacks the depth.
Brand loyalty may make you likely to be exploited by the suppliers of
your coveted ingredients. It had never happened to me .
That what separates a food science practitioner from a chef,,,,yes they
both have undertaken food studies and had acquired the food
processing skill useful in their profession...
The chef have so much passion for his trade that he ensures that his
favored ingredients should be a part of his cooking materials
repertoire so that he can deliver the best food to his client...
On the other hand the food science practitioner never cares about that
ingredient as long as it is within the specification he established,
(and follows the country's food legislation requirements )if he can
tweak the formulation so that another relatively similar ingredient
can takes it place without affecting the quality of the end product.
Pragmatism is the keyword here not idealism...

> nor I am impressed with those fancy brands !


>Nothing about a brand name, *in and of itself* says anything about quality.
>However, I will point out that brands do develop particular styles - so
>that from that information you can pick out certain chocolates from certain
>brands to suit certain needs. It's not that a brand guarantees anything,
>but I use these companies as examples in order to illustrate that there are
>indeed brand-to-brand differences that make it impossible to lump together
>chocolates from a given geographical region into one category.

Well I understand that point....that geography has noting to do with
product quality... but as I am not brand conscious but care for product
specification awareness...therefore .it does matter less to me whether
somebody claims that this material is superior in every aspects... I am
satisfied that at least I can duplicate many of that attributes in the
laboratory with cost effective ingredients.
....



>>>From the point of chocolate formulations....American and European
>>chocolates are not the same

>>Again, I would consider this an overly broad characterisation....
>>You can narrow the geographic scope as much as you like and it makes
>>little difference - different companies use different formulations.




>Food formulations are not the same in every continent ...
>It is also dictated by difference in tastes and preferences.
>However, if you're referring to *legal* definitions of chocolate in
>countries, yes, these do vary. But the legal definitions themselves have
>only the most incidental bearing on the chocolates from different
>countries. Usually they apply only to certain minimum standards which must
>be met, most of which chocolatiers exceed routinely. So asking about legal
>definitions tells you very little indeed.



>>I have been able to make extraordinarily smooth chocolate...with
>>extraordinary effort....
>Really....? Extraordinarily smooth means the particle size range is
>8-15 microns? ...IMO .thats kinda gives a slimy mouthfeel .....not
>extra smooth. From the chocolate quality standards that is already
>considered a fault and not a desirable attribute.


>The chocolate I obtained was smoother than Cluizel but not as smooth as
>Hachez. Overall Hachez has the best texture in the industry, but they
>achieve this at the expense of flavour intensity, because they use
>extremely high cocoa butter formulations (>50% cocoa butter).

Aha that makes sense....high amounts of fat tend to mask the grittiness
of higher particle size chocolates as more fat content tend to
create an unctuous feeling in the mouth and therefore had a
significant effect in modifying our sensory perceptions.

Another thing is fat has a coating effect on particulate matter, even
if the particle size is coarser i.e above the normal range of 10-40
microns in good chocolates .
More fat surface to coat the larger particles results in the smooth
sensory feeling in the mouth.
Having cocoa butter that high indicates the manufacturer has a kind of
passion that defies practicality....Why ?....certain surfactants can
replace ten times or more the effect of the same amount of cocoa butter
on chocolate functionality and at a tiny fraction of the cost.
This brings to my mind that such chocolate manufacturer is also a
fanatic...just like their ...hardcore consumers.

They are , not the kind of chocolate manufacturer that I will rub
elbows in regular basis and would not even go near them ...nor never
touch with a ten foot pole as the 'virus of their snobbishness or
(in extreme) lunacy' might infect me.<just joking>.
I am not sure if these kind of people have sufficient scientific and
practical knowledge to cure them of their extravagant madness<grin>..

That is maybe one reason that I am not impressed with the so called
high end chocolate products because in their minds being extravagant
is synonymous with elegance.
To me the highest form of elegance is not by extravagant means but
practicality and simplicity.....and that applies to any food
product....including chocolates....If you can make a chocolate with
optimum quality at the least cost then why would you go the extreme of
using more of one material when functionally speaking there are more
efficient and cost effective ways of doing it...?

The cost effective and efficient way to get the required chocolate
fluidity and viscosity is the use of available technological
ingredients.. and not the wanton use of an expensive ingredient like
cocoa butter which can increase the fat content of the product making
it less healthy to consume.... (Specifically speaking )to health
conscious people.

>I don't know how you did it , but I am certain it's an impractical
>and a sheer masochistic effort!
>IMO 99.9 % perspiration and 0.1% inspiration<grin>.


>You got it. But more like 90% obsession, 9% perspiration, 1% inspiration.
>Not really worth the effort unless you're determined to do it. Not
>economically practical, to be sure.

Obsessive compulsive behavior borders in lunacy < just joking>....I
hope you had checked your doctor about the soundness of your mental
health if your obsession is not curtailed.<jj>.

>>Well, most home users are probably not going to add extra emulsifiers.
>>Cluizel and Domori have gone emulsifier-free, with excellent results,
>>showing it can be done, so for the home user this is probably
>>acceptable as well.

>No added emulsifiers means a higher amount of cocoa butter which makes
>the product more expensive per unit weight.



>Which is acceptable for high-end companies like these and usually pretty
>acceptable for a home user, whose volume output is sufficiently small that
>saving a few pennies doesn't really mean much

That is maybe the case....small consumer don't care for extra pennies
as they can afford to give hefty tips for the service personnel in
the hospitality and even food retailers including chocolate
resellers).
These expensive chocolates make them a luxury commodity that only the
well to do can afford to be a part of their daily menu.
But its different from the point of the big time manufacturer,.taking
into consideration the majority of their chocolate consumers don't
have the big bucks to satisfy their chocolate cravings but still
requires that the chocolate confectionery to be as good if not
absolutely equivalent and chocolate manufacturing technology have
enabled much of that to become possible.