Sensory facility gives cash for tasters
USU is home to Aggie Ice Cream, its own cheese and local milk. Though they may not know it, students can test these – and other locally produced foods – and be paid for it.
Located in the Nutrition and Food Sciences Building next to Aggie Ice Cream, the sensory research facility is holding a milk taste testing every Tuesday until the end of October. For every student’s visit, they receive a coupon for a free Aggie Ice Cream. $25 is given for going five times, and $50 is given for attending 10 times.
Alan Hodges, a freshman, has been to the milk test four times and plans to keep going to qualify for the $50.
“It’s interesting for sure,” Hodges said. “Some of the samples are a little weird tasting, but it’s pretty enjoyable. I’m coming back for a pretty easy way to get some money and free Aggie Ice cream.”
Sarbojeet Jana, a graduate student in food sciences, said he’s taste tested peaches before as well as milk. Because a sensory research course is a requirement for food science majors, he said it is positive for him to participate in sensory research.
“Although free Aggie ice cream is a great promotional tool and some students don’t see past that, the data the research assistants collect is very valuable to the food science department,” said Vera Zhong, a graduate student in Food Science who is coordinating and executing the testing as a research assistant.
Her master’s project was very similar to the milk panel and involved a sensory panel that tasted baked goods such as pie crusts, cakes and cookies with different types of fat, she said. Both she and her professor, Silvana Martini, are excited about the results as they analyze the data.
Dr. Martini, associate professor of Food Sciences, is a mentor to Zhong and heads the milk taste testing project.
“I can’t tell too much detail about it because the more data I give out, the more biased our panel is going to be,” she said.
Even the name of the national company that requested the testing is confidential.
“They are doing some treatments to the milk and we are storing it over time and we are tasting it over time,” Martini said.
“There are five samples and five treatments, but the testers are only tasting three of those treatments,” she said.
At the end of the testing period in October, more information will be available about the treatments used for the study and the trends found in milk preferences, Martini said.
“Sensory research is a very fast growing area in food science and more and more companies are using sensory evaluation to determine the quality of their products and how people or consumers like the product,” Martini said.
As a research university, USU offers unique opportunities for students as they assist their professors in ongoing, hands-on research in their chosen field, Martini said.
“Having that balance between the basic science and the applied science that we get from companies I think is great for the students. They get the full spectrum of what research is about,” she said.
The experience gained designing the experiment, preparing the samples, dealing with the people, analyzing the data and reporting the data is all very beneficial to the students involved in carrying out these testing panels, she said.
“Sometimes we have companies that contact us directly,” Martini said. “In that case, it really is a good opportunity for the student to have a first contact with companies that might be their employers in the future. It is a good way of networking for them.”
Hands-on experience with real life problems, real life situations, is invaluable, according to Martini. A company locates a problem with a product and initiates a consumer test based on changing an ingredient or a similar variable. They then engage the food science department with the execution of the experiment to see how the change altered acceptance of the product by the consumer, she said.
“It is a great opportunity for students to get hands-on experience with sensory science,” Martini said. “That includes from experimental design to sample preparation to the interpretation and presentation-the whole spectrum of what sensory science is about.”
– abhendrix@pentaracorp.com