Digital technologies to assess yoghurt quality traits and consumers acceptability.

BACKGROUND: Sensory biometrics provide advantages for consumer tasting by quantifying physiological changes and the emotional response from participants, removing variability associated with self-reported responses. The present study aimed to measure consumers' emotional and physiological responses towards different commercial yoghurts, including dairy and plant-based yoghurts. The physiochemical properties of these products were also measured and linked with consumer responses. RESULTS: Six samples (Control, Coconut, Soy, Berry, Cookies and Drinkable) were evaluated for overall liking by n = 62 consumers using a nine-point hedonic scale. Videos from participants were recorded using the Bio-Sensory application during tasting to assess emotions and heart rate. Physicochemical parameters Brix, pH, density, color (L, a and b), firmness and near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy were also measured. Principal component analysis and a correlation matrix were used to assess relationships between the measured parameters. Heart rate was positively related to firmness, yaw head movement and overall liking, which were further associated with the Cookies sample. Two machine learning regression models were developed using (i) NIR absorbance values as inputs to predict the physicochemical parameters (Model 1) and (ii) the outputs from Model 1 as inputs to predict consumers overall liking (Model 2). Both models presented very high accuracy (Model 1: R = 0.98; Model 2: R = 0.99). CONCLUSION: The presented methods were shown to be highly accurate and reliable with respect to their potential use by the industry to assess yoghurt quality traits and acceptability. © 2022 The Authors. Journal of The Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.

Plant and Dairy-Based Yogurts: A Comparison of Consumer Sensory Acceptability Linked to Textural Analysis.

Yogurt, readily available in plant and dairy-based formulations, is widely consumed and linked with health benefits. This research is aimed to understand the sensory and textural spectrum of commercially available dairy and plant-based yogurts. In a preliminary study, qualitative focus group discussions (4 groups; n = 32) were used to determine perceptions of 28 dairy and plant-based yogurts, identifying positive consumer perceptions of plant-based yogurts. A smaller subset of five spoonable and one drinkable yogurts-(Reference, Soy, Coconut, Cookies, Berry, and Drinkable) was subsequently selected for rheological and structural measurements, showing wide variations in the microstructure and rheology of selected yogurt samples. A quantitative blind sensory tasting (n = 117) showed varying yogurt acceptability, with Berry being the least-liked and Cookies being the most-liked yogurt, in terms of overall liking. The multi-factor analysis confirmed that compositional and textural elements, including protein content, gel firmness, and consistency coefficient, displayed a positive relationship with overall liking. In contrast, fat, sugar, and calories were negatively correlated to the overall liking. This research showed that texture and other compositional factors are significant determinants of the consumer acceptability of yogurt products and are essential properties to consider in product development.

Differences in Hedonic Responses, Facial Expressions and Self-Reported Emotions of Consumers Using Commercial Yogurts: A Cross-Cultural Study.

Hedonic scale testing is a well-accepted methodology for assessing consumer perceptions but is compromised by variation in voluntary responses between cultures. Check-all-that-apply (CATA) methods using emotion terms or emojis and facial expression recognition (FER) are emerging as more powerful tools for consumer sensory testing as they may offer improved assessment of voluntary and involuntary responses, respectively. Therefore, this experiment compared traditional hedonic scale responses for overall liking to (1) CATA emotions, (2) CATA emojis and (3) FER. The experiment measured voluntary and involuntary responses from 62 participants of Asian (53%) versus Western (47%) origin, who consumed six divergent yogurt formulations (Greek, drinkable, soy, coconut, berry, cookies). The hedonic scales could discriminate between yogurt formulations but could not distinguish between responses across the cultural groups. Aversive responses to formulations were the easiest to characterize for all methods; the hedonic scale was the only method that could not characterize differences in cultural preferences, with CATA emojis displaying the highest level of discrimination. In conclusion, CATA methods, particularly the use of emojis, showed improved characterization of cross-cultural preferences of yogurt formulations compared to hedonic scales and FER.

'Bhavishya Shakti: Empowering the Future': establishing and evaluating a pilot community mobile teaching kitchen as an innovative model, training marginalised women to become nutrition champions and culinary health educators in Kolkata, India.

BACKGROUND: Malnutrition is a global emergency, creating an overlapping burden on individual, public and economic health. The double burden of malnutrition affects approximately 2.3 billion adults worldwide. Following 3 years of capacity building work in Kolkata, with assistance of local volunteers and organisations, we established an empowering nutrition education model in the form of a 'mobile teaching kitchen (MTK)' with the aim of creating culinary health educators from lay slum-dwelling women. AIMS: To evaluate the piloting of a novel MTK nutrition education platform and its effects on the participants, alongside data collection feasibility. METHODS: Over 6 months, marginalised (RG Kar and Chetla slums) women underwent nutrition training using the MTK supported by dietitians, doctors and volunteers. Preintervention and postintervention assessments of knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP), as well as anthropometric and clinical nutritional status of both the women and their children were recorded. The education was delivered by a 'See One, Do One, Teach One' approach with a final assessment of teaching delivery performed in the final session. RESULTS: Twelve women were trained in total, six from each slum. Statistically significant improvements were noted in sections of KAP, with improvements in nutrition knowledge (+4.8) and practices (+0.8). In addition, statistically significant positive changes were seen in 'understanding of healthy nutrition for their children' (p=0.02), 'sources of protein rich food' (p=0.02) and 'not skipping meals if a child is ill' (p≤0.001). CONCLUSION: The MTK as a public health intervention managed to educate, empower and upskill two groups of lay marginalised women into MTK Champions from the urban slums of Kolkata, India. Improvements in their nutrition KAP demonstrate just some of the effects of this programme. By the provision of healthy meals and nutritional messages, the MTK Champions are key drivers nudging improvements in nutrition and health related awareness with a ripple effect across the communities that they serve. There is potential to upscale and adapt this programme to other settings, or developing into a microenterprise model, that can help future MTK Champions earn a stable income.