Sensory panel
During the product development cycle it is necessary to conduct periodic quality assessment of the product being developed. This is done either with a consumer panel or
a trained panel. Both kinds of panels are required as constituents of product development team. The trained panel is selected and trained in such a way that the panelists are capable of giving high reliability of judgments independent of psychological factors such as bias, motivation and individual experience. The expert is not viewed as representing the consumer. The role of the expert in product development is to determine flaws in the development process (too salty, poor texture etc), and possibly to attribute these flaws to specific processing steps, eg: burnt note attributable to overheating or higher processing temperature. This information is used by the developer to alter the formulation or to improve processing. As a result of experimentation and sensory evaluation an optimized product is developed. This is then submitted to a consumer to be maximally effective.