Can improving a biscuit's nutritional characteristics be compatible with maintaining it sensory quality?

International audienceAuthorities encourage people to reduce fat and sugar consumption in public campaigns such as the National Nutritional Health Program in France. French producers are also encouraged to improve the nutritional composition of well-known commercial products by reducing fat and/or sugar contents. The objective of our study was to determine whether it was possible to do so while maintaining the sensory quality of the reformulated products. The study dealt with the impact of fat and sugar reduction on liking and sensory perception of 6 types of French commercial biscuits and cakes. For each type of product, one example of the French market was studied. Results show that fat- or sugar-reduced biscuits are mainly less appreciated than standard ones when they are perceived as less sweet. Besides, results depend on products. Oqali, the nutritional section of the French food observatory, records the nutritional composition of most food items from the French market in a given set of food categories, including the biscuit one. Thus, for each type of biscuits of our study, plots were produced with the levels of fat and sugar content of most biscuits from the French market. Products from our study were superimposed on these plots in order to define a limit of fat and/or sugar reduction above which liking would be significantly deteriorated. This limit underlines that it is not possible to reduce fat and sugar content on biscuits endlessly and that product taste should always be taken into account when reformulating. It is then interesting to assess for each biscuit type where the current offer of the market is located relatively to this limit. This information could be used by the food industry to foresee if they could improve the nutritional quality of their products while maintaining their sensory quality