Creamy, crunchy, rich, mouthwatering. Words consumers use to describe textures and eating experiences are useful for marketers but imprecise for food developers. National Starch Food Innovation believes the key to delivering new and improved food products is to better understand the consumer lexicon and preferences, and translate that information into technical language that food formulators can put into practice. That’s why we have a team of industry-leading sensory experts, to aid our culinary and food formulation specialists in their work with customers.

Descriptive analysis
Dedicated to the descriptive process, our team uses its highly developed texture language and sensory skills to create profiles and texture maps. This information is correlated with instrumental measurement and consumer testing to create technical road maps for our customers’ product improvement and development efforts.

Consumer testing
The sensory team continuously performs consumer testing to benchmark leading products and determine acceptability and preferences. They also appraise different categories to determine the consumer drivers and motivation to purchase. These insights are then used to brainstorm with our technical teams to create new ideas and fast track the process for prototype development, ingredient performance and market familiarisation. This process helps identify opportunities for National Starch Food Innovation and our customers.

What it means for formulators
This continuous process of testing consumer attributes and applying descriptive analysis has lead to the creation of a highly developed texture language and road maps for food formulators. The result: unique and differentiating textures, shorter time to market and higher success rates.

* A registered trademark of the Research Chefs Association (RCA), Culinology® describes the blending of culinary arts and the science of food.