Week 8! Can't believe I survived this. Looking back, I actually didn't do much, but why did I feel so exhausted and worn by assignments? LOL! anyway, I am super excited as I'll be sleeping soundly in my warm blanket, in the city of cats, in 3 hours time.
RL140512 Lecture 8: Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and call the adventure Science.
A little story about me before I proceed with this week's reflective learning. Not to sound boastful, but since small, I was always told how was I gifted in my five senses. I can taste and smell the ingredients used in a certain dish and reciprocate the taste quiet accurately. I can recognise relative pitch and easily detect the difference between two notes. But I felt I kinda desensitise myself over the years as I don't really utilise these senses. *oops* Anyhow, because of this, I've always considered sensorial scientist (other than food critique) as one of my future occupation. Smelling perfume everyday, telling the aroma, or tasting wine describing the taste, age, etc etc. though I wasn't even sure if these kind of occupation really existed.
RL140512 Lecture 8: Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and call the adventure Science.
A little story about me before I proceed with this week's reflective learning. Not to sound boastful, but since small, I was always told how was I gifted in my five senses. I can taste and smell the ingredients used in a certain dish and reciprocate the taste quiet accurately. I can recognise relative pitch and easily detect the difference between two notes. But I felt I kinda desensitise myself over the years as I don't really utilise these senses. *oops* Anyhow, because of this, I've always considered sensorial scientist (other than food critique) as one of my future occupation. Smelling perfume everyday, telling the aroma, or tasting wine describing the taste, age, etc etc. though I wasn't even sure if these kind of occupation really existed.
Okay, back to the topic, this week's lecture was about sensory evaluation. While in our module, this test is mainly a subjective test, it has a whole lot of knowledge behind. In addition, there's this discipline called sensory science, where they objectify qualities into quantity and develop methods and systems to measure the different qualitative aspects, so to generate and analyse the data collected. But that's not the concern for this subject. In experiment food and practices, the purpose of conducting this test is more important.
So, there're 3 kinds of test in sensory analysis, namely the descriptive test -- to describe the sensorial quality of the test samples, hedonic test -- to know the liking of respondent towards the food sample, and the simplest of all, discriminative test -- to tell whether there's any difference between the test sample. Most of the time, the tests might not be solely conducted in one form, but a combination of three. The first test, descriptive test needs a panel of professional panelist to come out with description of the test samples, while the other two is easier to be conducted whereby any Tom, Dick and Harry can take part in. However, wherever public is involved the sample size has to be at least 60 to gather reliable data, and the panelist should be isolated and remain neutral on the test subject to prevent biased results.
So, what's so important about sensory test and why shall we conduct the test? See, this is a profit oriented society. Companies don't invest in something that would make a lost. In this food industry, customers/consumers brings in revenue. So, we must satisfy their needs/wants to ensure they buy your product. So, to know what they want, we must at least conduct sensory test to know if our product suits their liking. One might argue, "forget about the taste, marketing can do the job." Oh, marketing again... =/ While I don't deny the power of marketing, I still think quality is still the very criterion to a successful food product. I, for one, will not be willing to spend on something that I found uninteresting and tasteless, or just some flavoured food that has no 'actual' ingredient at all. *coughs* some international snacks/drinks franchise *coughs* So, yeah, market study is still important, and that's why sensory evaluation has such high value in the food industry. Look at Nestle, they have a department only doing sensory test!
So yeah, see how important sensory test is? I better buck up myself and come back to my senses now. *pun intended* I think I'd one day venture into this. Now that we're talking about senses, I can already smell the aroma of tomato kueh tiao already. Can't wait to board the flight! Happy holidays peep! Oh ya, before I forgot, HAPPY TEACHER's DAY, Dr. Chong!
So, there're 3 kinds of test in sensory analysis, namely the descriptive test -- to describe the sensorial quality of the test samples, hedonic test -- to know the liking of respondent towards the food sample, and the simplest of all, discriminative test -- to tell whether there's any difference between the test sample. Most of the time, the tests might not be solely conducted in one form, but a combination of three. The first test, descriptive test needs a panel of professional panelist to come out with description of the test samples, while the other two is easier to be conducted whereby any Tom, Dick and Harry can take part in. However, wherever public is involved the sample size has to be at least 60 to gather reliable data, and the panelist should be isolated and remain neutral on the test subject to prevent biased results.
So, what's so important about sensory test and why shall we conduct the test? See, this is a profit oriented society. Companies don't invest in something that would make a lost. In this food industry, customers/consumers brings in revenue. So, we must satisfy their needs/wants to ensure they buy your product. So, to know what they want, we must at least conduct sensory test to know if our product suits their liking. One might argue, "forget about the taste, marketing can do the job." Oh, marketing again... =/ While I don't deny the power of marketing, I still think quality is still the very criterion to a successful food product. I, for one, will not be willing to spend on something that I found uninteresting and tasteless, or just some flavoured food that has no 'actual' ingredient at all. *coughs* some international snacks/drinks franchise *coughs* So, yeah, market study is still important, and that's why sensory evaluation has such high value in the food industry. Look at Nestle, they have a department only doing sensory test!
So yeah, see how important sensory test is? I better buck up myself and come back to my senses now. *pun intended* I think I'd one day venture into this. Now that we're talking about senses, I can already smell the aroma of tomato kueh tiao already. Can't wait to board the flight! Happy holidays peep! Oh ya, before I forgot, HAPPY TEACHER's DAY, Dr. Chong!
Counting down for homeward bound,
Dong
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