APPLICATION OF A CHECK‐ALL‐THAT‐APPLY QUESTION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHOCOLATE MILK DESSERTS

TLDR

Check‑all‑that‑apply (CATA) questions offer a simple alternative for capturing consumer perception of food products. In this study, nine chocolate milk desserts with varying sugar and cacao levels were evaluated by 70 consumers who scored overall liking and answered an 18‑term CATA questionnaire, while a trained panel also assessed the samples. CATA revealed significant differences in term usage across desserts, matched closely with trained panel results, and proved effective for identifying liking drivers, constructing sensory maps, and enabling external preference mapping without a trained panel.

Abstract

ABSTRACT Check‐all‐that‐apply (CATA) questions could be a simple alternative to get an insight on consumer perception of a food product. In the present work, CATA questions were used in the development of chocolate milk desserts. Nine chocolate milk desserts were formulated with different sugar and cacao concentration. A consumer study was performed with 70 people, who were asked to score their overall liking and to answer a CATA question that included 18 sensory and hedonic terms. Besides, the samples were evaluated by a trained assessors' panel. Highly significant differences were found in the frequencies in which CATA terms were used for describing the nine desserts, suggesting that this methodology was able to detect differences in consumer perception of the desserts. Sample configuration from consumers' CATA counts and trained assessors data were similar, suggesting a good agreement between both evaluations. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS The use of a CATA question resulted in a simple and valid approach to gather information about consumers' perception of the product, including both their sensory and hedonic impression. This methodology enabled the direct identification of drivers of liking for groups of consumers with different preference patterns. Considering results from the present study, the use of CATA questions could be an interesting methodology to obtain a sensory map based only on consumer perception of the products and to perform external preference mapping when a sensory trained panel is not available.