Towards an integration of sensory research and marketing in new food products development: A theoretical and methodological review

Abstract

Product innovation can be instrumental for firms that want to be market oriented. There are many examples in the literature of the importance of sensory analysis in terms of designing, testing, launching, and rethinking food products. Sensory and product testing researchers have often called on to participate in the development of new products but they only quantified consumer reactions to prototypes developed and not in concept development at the early stage development phase. Lately sensory science seems to move towards market research and the sensory professional is required to become an expert in concept development at the early stages and not just in the measurement of sensory responses. Thus, this paper reviewed and categorised the most common methods of consumer research for sensory professional to participate, with an interdisciplinary approach to the different stages of New Product Development (NPD) process with the support of background information and the use of the latest researches in the field of consumer science. This review showed that some of these techniques may not have attained extensive adoption by product developers, because the conceptual bases, the theoretical constructs, and descriptive terminology associated with them are distant to product developers and their qualitative nature place them in conflict more quantitatively. Key words: Consumer research, qualitative techniques, sensory analysis, product innovation.