|
Mackie's taste panel meet in our New Product Development Kitchen
and perform an important part of our development and quality work.
Members of the Panel are staff volunteers selected by passing tests
which prove a high sensitivity for flavours and aromas.
  |
| the
panel |
For example there
are recognition tests where you are asked to identify different
flavours and aromas and ranking tests where you are given five different
water solutions with varied intensities of sugar and are asked to
rank them in order from the weakest to the strongest. The Taste
Panel meets at least once a week where a variety of products and
tests are discussed.
The rigorous Training Programme means that we now have a Taste
Panel which is highly skilled in consistency and Profiling. Profiles
are a state of the art technique used to build an objective assessment
of any ice cream. Each product has it's own profile with specific
scores on five attributes - appearance, visual texture, flavour,
texture in the mouth and aftertaste. The profiles do not mean that
an ice cream is good or bad - it is merely a descriptive tool.
The main functions of the Taste Panel are:
- To assess objectively
all products to ensure that Mackie's ice cream quality remains
consistent.
- To compare our
ice cream with competitors, to maintain and understand it's
uniqueness.
- To describe
objectively what customers like best as identified through consumer
product testing.
- To test new
products - carry out likeability tests and provide a first response
to new product ideas.
Lay Panel
We also have several more informal taste Panels - groups of staff
volunteers who may not have passed the taste tests or not completed
their training - they are still valuable to try out new flavours
!
|
