Establishment of Quality Assurance Sensory Panel and Descriptive Sensory Panel for Soup Mixtures

Abstract

Any food product has to be analysed and accepted by a quality control sensory panel prior to be released to the market. The panel used for this purpose should be well trained using standards, in order to make them familiar with the standard sensory characteristics of the product. Establishment of a training procedure and trained sensory panel and for the quality assurance of a soup mixture was one of the major objectives of this research. Descriptive sensory panel must be able to provide a quantitative specification of all the sensory attributes of a food product for development activities. So the panel used for this purpose should be highly trained and standardized with the usage of references. Establishment of a training procedure and trained sensory panel for the descriptive sensory analysis of the above soup mixture was the other major objective of this research. For the accomplishment of this objective first the major sensory attributes of the soup mixture were identified and formulations of the samples that can be used for the training were determined with the assistance of a sensory expert. Panel consisted three members who were selected through a pie screening procedure. At the out set of the training program the panel was given the basic knowledge about importance and general rules of sensory analysis and the basic test procedures. In order to make the panel familiar with the standard sensory characteristics of the soup, they were trained using the standard sample along with number of samples having deviated sensory characteristics. To further expertise the panel they were trained using soup samples having different intensities of sensory characteristics of the product ,i.e. saltiness, umami taste, sweetness,chicken flavour, colour and viscosity. Further they were made familiarised about the effect of major flavouring ingredients on the overall flavour profile of the soup, using samples having different compositions of flavouring ingredients in water base and com flour gravy. Performance evaluation was done on the following day of each of the training sessions and at the-end of the whole training program in which all the members were able to identify the standard sample and were able to arrange the samples with different intensities of sensory characteristics in their increasing order. The performance evaluation results revealed that the training procedure is effective so that the trainees can be appointed in the quality assurance sensory panel. And also this procedure can be further improved by including training on scaling and profiling methods and can be used to train a descriptive sensory panel.