Food & Ingredients June 2023

Givaudan celebrates 30 years
of translating science
into emotions with Sense It ®
Sense It ® , a proprietary taste language
created by Givaudan, is celebrating its
30th anniversary. First developed in 1993, it
has become a universal and standardised
language used around the world for food
experience characterisation, differentiation,
and product innovation.
Sense It ® has grown enormously since its
inception, with Givaudan regularly adding new
descriptors to the language. What began as a
local tool for flavour characterisation has been
transformed into a robust universal language
with descriptors for flavour, taste and mouthfeel.
As the language has grown, so has its ability
to describe up-and-coming categories,
such as plant-based meat. For example, the
introduction of a mouthfeel language for
solid applications was recently rolled out,
enabling manufacturers to better understand
how to modulate dry, astringent and juiciness
characteristics in plant-based products.
Fabio Campanile, Global Head of Science
& Technology Taste & Wellbeing, explains,
“Consumers know if they like or do not like a
product, but have difficulty explaining why.
Sense It ® helps bridge the gap between what
consumers perceive and what they are able to
express. Over the years the language has been
expanded into new, important categories and so
it continues to be very valuable in helping guide
our customers with their product creation.”
A strength of the Sense It ® language is that
it allows usage in virtual environments, when
alternatives to in-person consumer testing are
needed. Trained panels at Givaudan were able
to use Sense It ® along with their proprietary
holistic profiling method to provide customers
with highly accurate information on consumer
perception without going to consumers.
Looking to the future, digitisation will play a key
role in simplifying the language’s increasing
complexity and creating a seamless experience
for users. Fabio remarked, “We’re creating a
new set of digital tools that will help the user put
their sensory perception of a product, such as
a plant-based burger, into descriptive words
that convey the full experience, including
mouthfeel, colour and taste.”
With +400 descriptors and
digitisation plans, the
sensory language is building
an ever-clearer window into
the consumer mind.
While Sense It ® will greatly benefit from this
digitisation, it’s also playing a pivotal role in
helping AI tools and digital tools become
more effective. By translating consumer
perception into language, Sense It ® provides
a rich vocabulary with which we can digitally
communicate about the senses, supporting
and enabling our next generation of
language-based AI applications.
JUNE 2023 FOOD & INGREDIENTS INTERNATIONAL
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