PALATABILITY MEASUREMENT Kemin Symposium, May 2019 KEMIN - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

PALATABILITY MEASUREMENT

Kemin Symposium, May 2019

KEMIN Symposium, May 2019 1

Overview

• 1. Introduction : what is palatability?
• 2. The different kinds of panels
• 3. The different testing methods
• 4. Conclusion : how to choose

PALATABILITY MEASUREMENT

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Introduction : defining palatability

PALATABILITY

• Acceptance or attractiveness of

the food for the pet

• Measured through food intake

GLOBAL PALATABILITY

• Pets enjoyment
• Measured by humans,

through pet behaviour USER EXPERIENCE

• Pet owner appreciation of

the product

• Measured by pet owners

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From pet feeding ……………………………………………………..………………………..…….to pet parenting

What influences palatability?

Smell Taste Texture …… Calorie content Protein content Moisture level Digestibility, …….

Nutritional characteristics Sensory characteristics Previous feeding experiences Environment and methodology Individual differences

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The different kinds of panels

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Two main kinds of panels

• Expert panels
• In-home or consumer panels

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Expert panels

• Companies specialized in feeding studies with cats and dogs
• Operate with kennels and catteries

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Experts panels

Panel size and composition

• Most often 20 to 40 animals/test
• Breed diversity can be limited
• Age diversity is usually limited (not many senior

animals)

• Animals may or may not be dedicated to a specific

kind of testing (dry or wet food)

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Experts panels

Catteries and kennels

• Animals are cared for by animal technicians
• Animal well-being should be a constant concern as it can

impact image and quality of the measurements

• Environmental enrichment is important (social and

physical enrichment)

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Expert panels

Overview

• Trained animal technicians
• Controlled and stable environment
• Precise instruments (scales, software,…)

PRECISE MEASUREMENT

• Limited time and effort to implement

EFFECTIVE TOOL FOR QUICK AND ROUTINE

MEASUREMENT

• Limited animal diversity and limited food diversity
• Testing environment and methods different from real-life feeding conditions

THE « TRUENESS » OF THE MEASUREMENT IS SOMETIMES

QUESTIONABLE

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In-home or consumer panels

• Companies specialized in collecting data from consumers
• Panels made of volunteer households
• Tests are run at home, by the pet owner

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In-home panels

Panel size and composition

• Panel set up specifically for each study to meet customer needs
• Inclusion/exclusion criterion in order to be representative of the target

population

• Pets : breed, age, weight, lifestyle, feeding habits,…
• Pet owners : purchasing habits, age, relationship with the pet, …
• Panel size : large, most often 60 to 200 participants

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In-home panels

Protocols

• Protocols : custom designed, great flexibility
• Food intake : measured by weighing or visual observation
• Behavioral data
• Pet owner questionnaire

 Challenge : to be both representative of real-life feeding conditions AND discriminant

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In-home panels

Overview

• Environment and method have limited standardisation
• Panel and testing conditions are close to real-life
• Data enriched with pet owner feedback

VERY GOOD MARKET REPRESENTATIVITY WILL NOT DETECT VERY SMALL DIFFERENCES

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Panel comparison

EXPERT PANEL IN-HOME PANEL

Precision Can detect very small differences Small differences are less easily detected Implementation Fast Takes more time Panel representativity Fixed composition Segmentation is usually not possible Custom-designed Hyper segmentation is possible Testing conditions Standardized Not necessarily representative of real- life feeding conditions Variable degree of standardization Market representative Control & Bias Quality control easy to implement Possible biases due to previous feeding experience Quality control based on data auditing and panelist follow-up Costs Variable, depends on the panel. Cost/day or cost/day/animal Variable, depends on the panel. Cost/study.

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Testing methods: Versus and Monadic

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Testing methods

The majority

• f

testing methods are based

• n

food consumption. Two tests dominate the market:

• The preference test (or versus test)
• The acceptance or liking test (or monadic test)

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Evolution of palatability testing

2019 Humanisation Premiumisation Weight Management Enjoyment Incremental increase in palatability through palatability enhancers

• Versus tests used to measure the

palatability increase

• Monadic tests mainly used to verify

that food consumption is sufficient

• Increase in palatability is harder to see on the market
• Questions emerge regarding quantities eaten as the only criteria

in view of pet obesity

• Pet to pet owner relationship gains importance, with strong

emotional bonds; pet owner expectations change Emergence of « new » methods to take into account these evolutions

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Two-bowl test

• Measures the preference of one food over another food
• Versus, 2-bowl, 2-pan, forced-choice
• Food quantities are weighed at the beginning and at the end
• f each meal to determine food intake
• The prefered food is the most eaten food

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Two-bowl test

• Simultaneous presentation of 2 foods
• In equal quantities
• For a defined time period
• The method must allow for the collection of individual data
• Each bowl should contain enough food to meet the animals daily

caloric intake

• Usually done over 1 to 4 days

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Two-bowl test - Methodology

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DOGS CATS 1 or 2 meals / day 2 meals per day or continuous free access to food bowls Food ration : adapted to each dog’s needs Food ration : may be individually defined, but is often the same for all cats Possible observation of the first choice Possible to record a first choice A minimum of 2 data sets should be collected, with a change in food position (left  right) to avoid measuring side-effects Test should be ended when a dog has eaten the equivalent of one food bowl Test ends when the predetermined time is up

Two-bowl test - criteria

• Consumption ratios of diets A and B : 37%A / 63%B
• 1. Recording of quantities eaten in grams for each animal
• 2. Calculation of individual consumption ratios
• 3. Calculation of the average of the consumption ratios
• First choice
• First product tasted. Determined by olfaction.
• Highly correlated to the consumption ratio for dogs

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Two-bowl test - examples

* *

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CATS DOGS

* **

Single-bowl test

• Measures food acceptance or food liking. Can be used to determine

food preference.

• Monadic, one-bowl, single-bowl
• Food quantities are weighed at the beginning and at the end of each

meal to determine food intake

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Single-bowl test

• One food at a time
• In a sufficient quantity to meet the animal’s daily caloric needs
• For a defined time period
• From one day to several weeks
• The method must allow for the collection of individual data
• Strong impact of the serving size

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Single-bowl test

• Single product testing

To measure product acceptance.

• Multiple product testing= sequential monadic
• comparison and ranking of products
• comparison to a target
• Balanced order design

cats 1 to 50 cats 51 to 100 day 1 product 1 product 2 day 2 product 1 product 2 day 3 product 2 product 1 day 4 product 2 product 1 cats days

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Single-bowl test : criteria

• Food intake of diet A (and diets B, C,…)
• Expressed in grams, in case of identical initial food

rations

• Expressed in intake ratio, in case of different initial

servings (IR = food eaten / food given)

• Distribution of consumptions

% of refusals % of finished bowls

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Single-bowl test - Example

*

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* *

Single-bowl test - Example

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* * **

Monadic and Versus comparison

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VERSUS MONADIC Preference Acceptance or liking Relative measurement, gives little information on whether a food was liked or not Gives indications on the liking of a food Testing conditions are very different from real-life feeding conditions Testing conditions are very close to real-life feeding conditions Can detect very small differences between 2 foods Will not detect very small differences between 2 foods

Other palatability measurement methods

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Pet owner evaluation

• Pet food evaluation
• Pet’s enjoyment
• Pet owner expectations

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* **

Sensory analysis of petfood

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1 2 3 4 5

meaty fishy green roasted cereal smoked rancid

Kibble sensory profile

kibble 247 kibble 519

581 294 672

• Sensorial caracterisation of pet foods by trained panels
• Gives strong insights on product quality and processing aspects
• Important in determing and meeting pet owner expectations
• Correlations with pet preferences remain complicated to

establish

Detecting differences with triangular testing

Kinetics of consumption

• Studies the distribution of the food consumtion over time
• Requires automatic recording and massive calculations
• Can be useful for satiating products

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Tobie et al., Assessing food preferences in dogs and cats : a review of the current methods, Animals 2015, 5, 126-137

Behavioral observations

• The link to palatability is not straightforward
• Examples of studied criteria for cats:

–Food prehension with the teeth or the tongue –Licking of the lips (positive) or the nose (negative) –Excessive smelling without eating (negative)

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Cognitive testing

• The tested foods are used as rewards
• The test measures the performance of animals in a task that

requires effort or learning  higher performance = higher palatability of the reward

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What about other products ?

• Pet food supplements
• Owner compliance is a key aspect
• f product success
• Palatability may be an issue
• Treats
• Very high expectations in terms of

palatability

• Important bonding moment

between the pet and the owner

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When it comes to choosing….

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www.vista-pets.com

cniceron@vista-pets.com

Thank you for your attention

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Palatability testing Consulting & training