Application of Multi-criteria Decision Making Techniques in Sensory Evaluation of Food Analogues

The field of sensory analysis, often known as sensory evaluation, looks into how well food products are received by consumers based on their sensory reactions. Panelists assess food features using their senses of taste, smell, touch, hearing, and sight in sensory analysis methodologies. There are different test methods for sensory analysis: discrimination tests, descriptive tests, and hedonic tests. Multi-criteria decision making showed rapid advancement both theoretically and in practical applications in the field of decision sensory analysis. The most popular methods used for sensory analyses are; Simple Additive Weighting, Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution, Grey Relational Analysis, Analytic Hierarchy Process, Elimination and Choice Expressing Reality. The growing population and changing habits of consumers in emerging nations have led to an increase in the demand for food analogues, or plant-based substitutes for dairy and meat. Recent customer preferences for plant-based meat and milk substitutes free of nutrients from animals have opened the door for studies and development of substitute foods. Many studies use a variety of sensory tests to assess consumers’ approval of food analogues produced from goods such as peas, wheat, peanuts, chickpeas, soy protein, and corn.