Sorting task as a rapid tool to explore sensory shelf-life in food products: A case study using smoothies of exotic and red fruit flavours

Storage life of most food products is limited by changes in their sensory characteristics. The present work shows how a sorting strategy can be a fast and reliable tool to quickly explore sensory deterioration in perishable products, using fruit smoothies under development as a case study. Smoothies (exotic and red fruit flavours) at three storage times were sorted by 30 consumers according to their global sensory similarities to check if replicates at t0 were globally perceived as similar among them, and different from samples with longer storage time. Samples were also submitted to physicochemical, nutritional and microbiological analysis. A panel of 12 trained panellists described both prototype flavours at t0, and six commercial smoothies to characterize freshly bottled products. If smoothies fulfil a quality standard when bottled NDASH susceptible of being spoiled during storage NDASH the sorting procedure can provide a fast and reliable estimation of attributes inducing a loss of sensory quality. Without any list of descriptors, the terms provided by consumers to characterize the sorted smoothies were equivalent to those mostly employed by the trained panel. This approach could be implemented in food industries in order to monitor sensory decay during storage