Coup de cœur RESEARCH

Spotlight on sensory evaluation

An international benchmark in the sensory evaluation of non-food products thanks to its panels, EBI is developing its research activities in line with the expectations of its industrial partners, in order to accelerate innovation in increasingly dynamic markets.

How to boost and secure product development? One of the most creative sectors is cosmetics, with sales of 228 billion USD in 2021. New products launched on the market must meet technical and sensory specifications, which require validation cycles based on instrumental characterization followed by sensory evaluation. This last sensory stage is time-consuming and costly, as it involves panelists who must be trained and drilled on an ongoing basis, and requires toxicological and microbiological checks. What if sensory analysis could be optimized by capitalizing on instrumental characterization? This gave rise to the idea within our teams of modeling instrumental measurements, with the aim of predicting sensory evaluation. EBInnov® focuses its research on this subject around four themes:

• product formulation, to validate correlation models,
• the use of computer languages, to identify the selection of the most relevant models with regard to a sensory descriptor,
• simple, rapid characterization protocols,
• research into new characterization methods.

Thanks to this multi-disciplinary work, a new sensory evaluation tool has been designed. It enables manufacturers to free themselves from panelists’ assessments of certain key stages in product development.

Find out more: Dr Sylvia Imbart