Comparison of flash profile (FP), projective mapping (PM) and CATA for the sensory profiling of chocolate with unique flavor characteristics.

Abstract

Rapid sensory profiling methods, including Check-All-That-Apply (CATA), Flash Profiling (FP), and Projective Mapping (PM), are widely used to generate sensory product maps across various food product categories. However, few studies have directly compared the performance of these methods with descriptive sensory analysis (DA) in evaluating fine chocolate-a product distinguished by both core and complementary (unique) flavors. This study investigated the suitability of CATA, FP, and PM for assessing fine chocolate produced with variations in cocoa content, origin, and variety. The results showed that the sample configurations and dendrograms obtained from the three methodologies were similar. Additionally, the RV coefficients were consistently high across methods (FP = 0.84; PM = 0.83; CATA = 0.70). These findings indicate that FP and PM, which achieved higher RV coefficients, can be used as reliable quality control methods in the fine chocolate industry. Furthermore, this study highlights two key similarities between DA and the rapid methods: all methods effectively distinguished samples with different cocoa percentages and origins but were unable to differentiate between cocoa varieties. Additionally, both trained panels and consumers confirmed that the unique flavors of fine chocolate with 50 % cocoa content could still be detected.