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at Tue, 27 Dec 2005 10:41:10 GMT in
.com>,
(Chembake) wrote :

>at Wed, 21 Dec 2005 22:51:35 GMT in
s.com>,
(Chembake) wrote :
>>Tue, 20 Dec 2005 01:13:40 GMT in
>However, earlier you say:
>>"Chocolate taste from the consumer panel is a subjective matter in
>>many cases... erroneous and does not reflect the true quality of the
>>chocolate . The marketing people are shrewdly exploiting the naivety of
>>the normal consumer"
>>Which to me would imply that you believe consumer panels are conducted
>>with preconceived conclusions already in mind. Otherwise, there would
>>be no naivete of the normal consumer to exploit. If you're approaching
>>the panel tasting truly objectively, indeed, to assume that a consumer
>>were naive would be in itself already a bias.
>...Why I consider consumer panel as unreliable as they are not trained
>in an objective manner like the in house panel which are mostly
>professionals in food processing. Consumers can come from a wide range
>of background and have already a bias how a food should taste according
>to their experience and prejudice

Exactly. And those biasses need to be taken into account, *not* eliminated
during tastings because indeed the consuming public does have expectations
about what certain foods should taste like and if you develop a product
that deviates from these expectations in ways the customers find to be a
negative, even though to the "trained professional" such things would be
simply another item of note as opposed to a negative as such, it risks
doing poorly in the marketplace.

The professional panel should thus not be conducted so as to *rate* the
food product in the sense of quality judgement, but rather simply to break
down its sensory qualities into neutral descriptors. There the panel is of
great value because consumers may not be able to describe in precise
language exactly what they're tasting. But they will be a better, or more
accurate, judge of its ultimate quality because in the end it is they that
you have to please.

>>>It's very similar to the process of drug research....
>>>you still have to go through the clinical trial...
>>That is part of the risk that any researcher will have to accept , but
>>a drug is not directly tested on humans but on animals; unlike most
>>confectionery research result which is tested directly by humans.
>>No, a clinical trial is by definition performed on human patients.
>Nope... clinical means analytical and coolly dispassionate in doing
>the task but is expected to get results in an objective manner.

Not in the case of the medical industry. In this context the clinical trial
means those trials conducted on live patients. I agree that your usage of
clinical as an adjective is one sometimes used to describe a variety of
situations, but when one is referring to the medical industry it would be
rare usage at best because of the probability of confusion.

>Consumer panels cannot do that..
>It means looking at things in objective manner with no pretense or
>influence from emotions
>
>>I'd analogise this to the case between the trained test panel
>>and the consumer panel. The test panel represents the animal subject -
>>a carefully selected group with calibrated response which you can
>>measure. The consumer panel is the clinical subjects - a group
>>representing the end target of the product who must themselves be
>>sampled to get results that give you data on real reactions as opposed
>>to reactions in a test case.
>
>You got it wrong....an in house trained panel are professionally
>trained in sensory analysis...but consumer panels are mostly
>not...therefore from your own analogy the latter are considered the
>monkeys while the fomer are the humans as they think carefully before
>giving a sound sensory assessment.

It sounds like you misinterpreted the analogy, because in the medical field
the purpose of lab work on animals is to understand baseline
characteristics of a drug and establish, often at a microcellular level,
the biological and biochemical processes taking place - the "objective"
side of the analysis where you're trying to break down the behaviour of the
drug into its constituent effects.

Meanwhile the clinical phase is conducted to find out how the drug performs
in the real world. Here what's being looked for is the overall effect on
the patient - in the broadest sense whether it does harm or good, and also
to a certain extent what side effects and other developments may be
expected.

So back to the food industry, the sensory panel would IMHO be primarily
about breaking down the taste and other qualities into their component
elements, where the consumer panel would be primarily about gauging overall
reaction. These would match nicely against the drug industry phases I
described.

In both cases the panels are the *subjects*, not the *experimenters*, so
whether they think carefully is itself irrelevant as concerns the analogy,
but in any case I wouldn't suggest that consumers aren't thinking
carefully. It's rather that their thought processes are different and not
directed so much at a component-by-component breakdown as at an overall
assessment.

>Besides the type of sensory analysis done by the consumer sensory panel
>is based on like and dislike which are not considered objective as that
>can be influenced by emotion and prejudice.

Since like and dislike are the ultimate bottom line for a food product, I
might argue that the creation of new such products cannot be a purely
objective process. Then again, I wonder if there *are* any purely objective
processes. Still, given that at the end of the day the goal is to create a
product that will be liked, the consumer must factor into this very
prominently and although you might assume that you can know what consumer
reaction is likely to be the actual testing gives real data as opposed to
statistical projections.

>The grading system for a consumer sensory analysis is not as elaborate
>as the from the trained sensory panel.
>Therefore its not considered to be of primary importance but only
>secondary( or supporting) in nature.

Why should a less-detailed report be given lesser weight? The only thing
that a detailed report gives you automatically is - more detail. It cannot
be assumed that because you have more detail you have more important
information. This is especially true when the needed information is a
subjective assessment that at the point of the buy decision comes down
quite often to the simple question - do I like it or not? Being able to
dissect *why* you like it is ultimately unimportant until after the fact.

>Besides you cannot compare a pharmaceutical evaluation of a new drug to
>testing a new confectionery product.
>The drug testing takes years...
>Meanwhile the confectionery product does not take that long ...

Timescales involved aren't important, necessarily, to the similarity of the
process. I'm using the drug example as an illustration of a similar overall
situation - the need to test heretofore unknown products whose effect is on
humans - humans who react in often unpredictable ways that have to be
accounted for rather than dismissed and which therefore tend to make the
process of product development somewhat less clear-cut, less easy to
operate like a deterministic algorithim, than for example developing a
machine to interact with other machines.

....

>>I suspect it's also inaccurate to call the soldiers the customers ...
>The military organization who requested such product is the customer
>and the soldiers are the consumers.
>...
>>Meanwhile when the product is going out into a commercial market, the
>>customers are the actual eating public, because at some point they're
>>buying the product....
>I don't see it that way,,,, any food product develop for buying
>customer had its own ;blueprint' or plan how its to developed and
>handled at the most economically reasonable way that will help bring
>the cost down. That is why there a widespread application of
>statistical methods such as Robust Product design, Design of
>experiments, Evolutionary operations, Taguchi methods which are
>incomprehensible to a non statistically minded individual.
>Trying to have every food product created by the food designer be
>tasted by the consumer is a grossly expensive and time consuming...

Most statistical controls have to do with testing samples as opposed to the
entire production run, however, you can't simply translate the statistical
data from one product to a different product, even if the products are
similar. The new product must have its own statistics be generated and this
involves data-gathering.

Nonetheless, it sounds as though what you mention may be the *actual*
primary objection to the use of consumer panels - high cost. Well, if that
is the case, there's no point in wasting time arguing about other reasons
as to why consumer panels should not be used - these other reasons are
simply attempts to justify a decision made for a different reason - a valid
reason that should be stated upfront. If it's too expensive, it's too
expensive.

>>I cannot understand the logic of such what I call 'leciphobic '(
>>phobia for lecithin )
>There are 2 common reasons for this.
>>One is that some people are so allergic to soy that even traces could
>>be life-threatening, and for them soy lecithin in any amount is a high
>>risk.
>I doubt about if there is such an established study that soy lecithin
>is a health risk. Its pure speculations...brought about by ignorance.

The problem is, it's a bit like a new drug, isn't it? If the consumer has
no way to know whether a particular ingredient could be fatal, should he be
expected to take it? Even with a modicum of common sense, clearly an
informed consumer will shun such a product until research does exist to
establish what the risks are. Thus that the deeply allergic will avoid soy
lecithin is a very rational decision indeed.

--
Alex Rast

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