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?

08/04/2022

An ESN-funded study finds an advantage of home testing compared to lab testing.

10/08/2020

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.

08/06/2020

Food that is designed for different eating styles could prevent people from overeating

03/30/2020

Marleen Chambaults (Campden BRI, UK) talks about novel consumer methods for product characterization.

05/08/2019

The European Sensory Network ESN has conducted a research program to evaluate the role of virtual and immersive reality in sensory testing.

01/15/2019

A study spanning five continents shows that people the world over associate food and feeling good with ’tastes good’.

05/30/2018

Valérie Lengard Almli taks about a new method to measure the sense of taste in small children.

03/12/2018

New research from ESN member BOKU illustrates why expectation and perception don´t always match.

05/30/2017

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.

05/09/2017

Maurice O´Sullivan about talks about his new book “A Handbook for Sensory and Consumer-Driven New Product Development”.

03/18/2017

Lise Dreyfuss talks about the ConsumerFacets test and how to use it for sensory research.

02/28/2017

How to make ready-made meal packages more attractive for older consumers.

02/20/2017

Video: Nancy Holthuysen talks about her new publication

02/02/2017

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.

12/15/2016

A study from the Monell Center suggests palatable tastes do not drive long-term overeating.

09/17/2016

Ludovic Depoortere talks about the role of mobile and virtual reality devices for sensory and consumer research.

08/08/2016

Klaus Dürrschmid gives an inside view into his research on implicit measurements of food choice.

11/25/2015

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.

 

11/10/2015

Foods that are more - or less - delicious than we expect can also cause mood changes

10/07/2015

Claire-Sulmont-Rossé gives an overview of the sense of smell and taste in the aging, as well as an insight into her research.

10/06/2015

Our sense of smell and taste declines with age. Yet not everyone is affected on the same level.

04/11/2015

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.

01/23/2015

What do facial expressions, eye tracking, and the autonomous nervous system reveal? Observational methods offer new possibilities for consumer research.

04/17/2013

Interview with Eliza Kostyra. At the Warsaw University of Life Sciences, children and youngsters from different age groups are.

03/14/2013

A new easily applied and quickly realizable All-In-One test allows sensory researchers to conduct rapid product tests under natural ...

11/09/2012

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 ...

07/08/2012

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 ...

03/01/2012

Icelandic researchers have found that sensory preconceptions spoil the appetite for fish, but this prejudice can be counteracted.

02/02/2012

The memory of tastes and smells functions fundamentally differently than visual memory. To better understand the characteristics of memory for ...

07/22/2011

In a qualitative survey, researchers from the Campden & Chorleywood Food Research Association Group, Gloucestershire, England, explored ...

06/15/2011

“Ugh, blah! That tastes terrible!” When you can see the person’s face as he eats, such exclamations are usually superfluous. Such spontaneous ...

02/01/2011

“More aroma, less salt” – this straight-forward formula is the result of a French study. European Sensory Network researchers examined a ...

09/14/2010

Can children be taught to become gourmets? The connoisseur country of France has a sensory education program for 8 to ...

04/29/2010

Hot, fiery tasting foods are becoming more and more popular. However, up until now there has been little research on these kinds of chemesthetic ...

02/09/2010

Sensory attributes and health-related product information are both important aspects of the consumers’ food choice. How do these ...

11/16/2009

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 ...

09/03/2009

Dutch sensory and consumer research experts ascertain the psychological influences of cut flowers on people.

07/13/2009

Market researchers of the French company ADRIANT®, a member of the European Sensory Network, have developed a method that easily allows to ...

05/05/2009

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 ...

04/09/2009

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.

02/27/2009

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 ...

01/22/2009

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 ...

11/04/2008

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...

09/06/2008

Interview with Ciarán Forde. Highly trained sensory panels are expected to work with machine-like proficiency. To ensure this ...

06/13/2008

Many elderly people have problems chewing and swallowing. Researchers at the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology (SIK) ...

03/03/2008

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 ...

01/29/2008

The question as to whether a fish is fresh can be more easily judged by human senses than by technical devices.

11/05/2007

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 ...

 

08/14/2007

A German sensory research institute has made a new European survey mapping out various taste characteristics of European beers.

07/24/2007

Sensory experts from the Faculty of Human Nutrition and Consumer Sciences at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences have ventured into ...

07/02/2007

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 ...

04/05/2007

In addition to wheat-based products, the flavour of oat and rye products may be optimised by using sophisticated processing methods.

03/20/2007

Bridging the gap between objective product qualities and the consumer’s complex desires and needs

03/12/2007

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 ...

02/14/2007

The Norwegian ESN member MATFORSK is collaborating with the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and the Royal Veterinary ...

10/09/2006

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.

09/28/2006

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.

09/01/2006

Interview with EP Köster. The consumer should be viewed as a variety of personalities that react differently in different situations.

08/25/2006

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.

01/07/2006

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 ...

12/16/2005

The English version of the training DVD “Sensory Evaluation in the Innovation Process” is now available.

11/18/2005

Men like to sink their teeth into a good rare steak, while women prefer well-done white meat or vegetarian food. What sounds like ...

10/31/2005

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 ...

07/04/2005

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 ...

06/05/2005

The European Union, with the participation of members from the European Sensory Network recently conducted the project "Eurosalmon" to discern which sorts of ...

01/20/2005

How much more is "like extremely" than "like very much" and how much less is "dislike moderately" compared to "dislike slightly"?

11/08/2004

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...

11/05/2004

The vast North American market place offers a seemingly unlimited array of selling opportunities for European products. There is cultural ...

09/08/2004

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.

08/25/2004

Focus groups are widely used for research studies in such fields as social sciences, product development, and marketing research. However, reviewers have yet ...

10/30/2002

There is a marked difference in the expectations of German, French and Italian consumers regarding Emmentaler cheese.

10/30/2001

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 ...

05/06/2001

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.

02/24/2000

When choosing among similar products, consumers seem to rely more on their personal taste than on brands or quality-seals.

09/01/1992

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 ...