Question on ipm: A case study on lemon juice

International audienceIn food product development, using consumers to obtain ideal products is becoming more frequent inrecent years. Despite being an economical way of optimizing products, relying on consumers is,however, not yet widely accepted in the sensory community. The main objectives of this study were toevaluate (1) whether the stability of ideal intensities and ideal products could be improved byproviding a frame of references when consumers perform the Ideal Profile Method (IPM) and (2) theeffect of the order of the questions on consumers‘ responses.In the present study, sixty participants conducted two tasks: (1) rating the perceived and idealintensities of attributes and (2) reporting the overall liking. They were randomly divided into fourgroups. Group G1 and G2 used references in rating intensity, whereas group G3 and G4 did not.Concerning the order of question, group G1 and G3 answered the overall liking question before ratingthe intensity, whereas G2 and G4 followed the inverse order. The experimental design included sixlemon juice samples, and four attributes (pulp, lemon odor, sweetness, and sourness). A three-wayANOVA was conducted on the ideal intensities of attributes and overall liking with reference andorder as a between-subject factor and product as a within-subject factor.Results showed that providing a frame of references improved the stability of the ideal attribute pulp,but not of the other ideal attributes. Besides, the order effect was without influence on overall liking.For ideal intensities, an order effect was observed on the ideal attribute pulp between groups G3 andG4 (without reference), and was not observed between groups G1 and G2 (with references). Severalpossible modifications to improve the IPM are discussed