Comparative study on the hedonic and fuzzy logic based sensory analysis of formulated soup mix

Abstract

The functional soup formulated with leaves of Solanum nigrum, an underutilized food crop, was studied for the comparison between two different types of sensory analysis to identify the sample with the most preferable sensory acceptability and to determine the sensory attribute that influences the overall acceptability of the product. Hedonic scale analysis and Fuzzy logic sensory analysis were performed on 11 combinations of formulated soup mix obtained by D-optimal mixture design. The hedonic and fuzzy logic analysis revealed that flavour and taste had higher contribution towards overall acceptability of the soup, based on hedonic sensory score and higher similarity index values. The consumers preferred these parameters primarily and these influenced towards the consumer acceptability of the product. Linear regression analysis and Pearson's correlation of the hedonic data expressed that flavour and taste had major influence and correlation to the overall acceptability. The soup samples with moderate levels of leaf powder (3%), starch (35%) and spice mix (62%) were found to be the most organoleptically acceptable hedonically amongst all 11 combinations with the highest hedonic sensory score of 6.4 but based on fuzzy analysis sample 3 of leaf powder (1%), starch (28%) and spice mix (68%) had higher similarity index of 0.92.