Comparison of quick descriptive sensory methods in the evaluation of dulce de leche

Abstract

Sensory analysis plays a significant role in the food industry that needs to characterize and evaluate its products. Although there are various studies and sensory methods, the fast, dynamic, and low-cost, descriptive evaluations are gaining space in the market, due to the saving of time and financial investment. The Pivot Profile (PP), Projective Mapping (PM), and Check-all-that-apply (CATA) are examples of these tests. This study aimed to evaluate the results obtained by different rapid descriptive methods to provide information on the tasters’ perceptions of different brands of dulces de leche, in addition to analyzing and comparing the evaluator opinions regarding the ease and understanding in the execution of sensory evaluations performed. The methods used (PP, PM, and CATA) presented similar results, indicating an excellent discriminative capacity of the attributes and similar sensory maps. Regarding the ease of execution concerning the evaluated test, the CATA method was selected by the tasters as the easiest to perform, followed by PP and PM respectively (p <0.05), strengthening the particularity of each methodology and reinforcing its potential in description of the sensory characteristics of dulces de leche. Therefore, it is possible to highlight the effectiveness of the three descriptive sensory methods used in the evaluation of dulce de leche pasty.