Do experts' sensory assessment match consumers' hedonic valuations? An exploratory analysis on cured ham

SUMMARY - The agrofood industry is interested in the control and conformity of their products to the quality standards while also matching consumers' preferences. Sensory analysis provides a common framework to address both goals. The primary objective of this paper is to investigate to what extent the overall sensory valuations of experts coincide with consumers' preferences; and secondary, which are the sensory attributes that better match consumers' acceptability of cured ham. To fulfil these objectives, a total of 8 samples of cured ham was analysed by 14 trained experts and 213 consumers. The main method applied is Principal Components Analysis (PCA). In order to answer the second objective, we apply an extended PCA on consumers' scores where the attributes' ratings made by experts are also projected. To answer the first objective, the PCA on consumers' scores is compared with the PCA on assessors' scores. Both of them include the attributes' ratings made by experts.