12-5 |
Application of quantitative risk assessment to consumer preference mapping |
R. XIONG and J. F. C. Meullenet. Dept. of Food Science, Univ. of Arkansas, 2650 N. Young Ave., Fayetteville, AR 72704-5585 Quantitative risk assessment (QRA) is a methodology that can be used to organize and analyze scientific information to estimate the probability and severity of an adverse event. QRA is currently used in food microbiology to identify the health risk in those stages of manufacture, distribution, handling and consumption of foods associated with foodborne outbreaks. However, there is no information on the use of QRA in the sensory evaluation field. The objectives were (1) to investigate the possibility of combining QRA and preference maps in consumer testing and (2) to use QRA for estimating the risk of rejection of cheese stick products by consumers. Overall liking, appearance, flavor and texture of eight cheese stick products were evaluated by a consumer panel of 160 and a descriptive panel of 9. For the purpose of QRA, rejection rates for individual products were calculated for all attributes as the percentage of dislikers. PLS (partial least squares) regression was used to develop a deterministic preference map model for consumer overall rejection rate, and then QRA was performed to convert the deterministic model into a stochastic model by taking account the variances of all the independent variables through specified distributions. The model was simulated by the Monte Carlo method to estimate the consumer overall rejection risk of each product. The results show that the PLS preference map model fitted the data well (R2=0.98 for the overall rejection rate). The rejection rates for appearance, flavor and texture of the products were significant contributors (p<0.05) to the consumer overall rejection rate. Based on the PLS model, QRA provided information about the likely spread or distribution of the overall rejection rate for each product, which is very useful for decision-makers. The results imply that QRA will be an emerging tool for sensory scientists to estimate the risk of adverse events associated with new products tested in the market place.
Session 12, Sensory Evaluation: Methods and consumer testing
|