Highlight of important product characteristics for consumers. Comparison of three sensory descriptive methods performed by consumers

In consumer research, Repertory Grid is widely used in order to gain insights into consumer perception in a structured way and to link it to product characteristics. Flash Profile and Projective Mapping are two new sensory methods that can be conducted with consumers. This study aimed at comparing these three methods in order to get knowledge about how French consumers perceive the flavour of a range of lemon ice teas. Generalised Procustes Analysis and Multivariate Analysis of Variance allowed us to assess the correspondence between the sensory maps obtained with the three methods. Advantages and limits of each method are discussed. Besides, our results show that contrary to what is usually expected, sensory profiles performed by consumers lead to a predominant use of objective terms as well as a consensual use of a number of terms. This study thus opens perspectives for the development of descriptive analysis with consumer panels.

► The three sensory descriptive techniques overall led to very similar configurations.
► Projective Mapping provides less accurate descriptive results.
► Repertory Grid and Projective Mapping allow eliciting more descriptive terms.
► Consumers used more than 70% of purely descriptive terms.
► Sensory descriptive techniques can be used with consumers with appropriate guidance.