Taste reconsidered

by Peter Klosse, restaurateur and flavor specialist

Every year new products fail when brought to market. Despite all the hard work put in by R&D departments and the thumbs-up from consumer test panels. Why don't these products make it? In most cases it's because consumers don't get what they expect. Or to put it more precisely, they do not get what the presentation, for example packaging, promises. Because people's expectations of the product are based on the clues provided by the presentation (form, color and product name).

The failure of product launches underscores my thesis that flavor is the net result of a total experience that extends far beyond the actual product ingested. The things you see, hear and already know have an influence on what you taste. So in order to ensure that a food product appeals to someone's taste, all the elements involved have to match. Read more...

Taste versus flavor
Before we can objectively discuss taste, we first need to distinguish between taste and flavor. Taste refers to the human act of tasting. It is an intricate experience which involves all the senses. Flavor, however, refers to products. Food and drink have flavors. Making this distinction is important because this allows us to classify taste as subjective: whether you like the taste of a product is similar to whether you like the color red. Flavor then is an objective notion, making classification and assessment possible.

Culinary success factors
Certain dishes in Dutch haute cuisine are an instant and continuing success. A few years ago I became intrigued by this fact and set out to discover whether these dishes shared some crucial factors that virtually 'guaranteed' their success.  
For my Ph.D. dissertation, I studied signature dishes of the best chefs and restaurants in the Netherlands. In my attempt to objectify taste, I studied many factors including the ingredients used, the combination of sweet, sour and salty products, the different textures used and presentation. I found that it is possible to identify the factors that determine the culinary success of a dish. 

Hospital food
Recently I discovered more proof that there is such a thing as the perfect dish. The chef in the kitchen of a Danish hospital told me he had successfully applied my method. He had rewritten all the hospital's recipes in accordance with the culinary success factors I had identified in my dissertation. For example, he had adjusted the amounts of sugar and salt in his meals, changed the combinations of various textures, and improved the presentation. He measured the patients' satisfaction levels before and after the changes. Their satisfaction increased dramatically. And now, fourteen other Danish hospitals have adopted this chef's food program.

Visual clues
While the culinary success factors are undoubtedly valid, some people may still prefer a certain taste. After all, taste is subjective. This explains why some people prefer sweet flavors and round and soft textures while others like salty flavors and rough textures better. With this in mind, we can see why it is even more important that presentation as well as packaging corresponds to the flavor of the product inside. If we give consumers an accurate idea of what they can expect from the product inside, new products are a lot less likely to fail. Therefore, it is important that R&D departments in the food industry work closely together with their marketing departments. Packaging is an integral part of a product's taste experience. After all, consumers make their first choice based on visual clues.

Once a week, Food Valley will publish a column by an expert in taste from the food industry. These columns are a taste of things to come at the 2009 Food Valley Conference "It's a matter of taste", which you are welcome to attend!

The 2009 Food Valley Conference will focus on taste and will bring you up to date on the latest trends and developments. Leading speakers and workshop leaders from the Netherlands and abroad will share their knowledge and insights. During the conference, the Innovation Plaza will showcase food and food-related companies and will present their latest innovations. A special section is reserved for start-up companies. This is a unique opportunity to meet business leaders from the agro-food sector, representatives of research and knowledge institutes, government decision-makers and intermediaries. The 7th Food Valley Conference will start on Thursday, 8 October 2009.