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The Intrinsic Taste of Water and Consumer Preferences

http://www.bulletins-electroniques.com/actualites/61471.htm

In December, Eric Teillet will be defending his thesis, thus completing three years of research on the intrinsic taste of water for the Eau Bonne A Boire (good drinking water) project, also called Sens'eau sponsored by Lyonnaise des Eaux and accredited by VITAGORA. The ENITIAA (Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs des Techniques des Industries Agricoles et Alimentaires de Nantes, Nantes National Engineering School for Agricultural and Food Industries) graduate engineer began his research after receiving a Master's in Mathematical Engineering at Nantes University following by an internship at the Institut Français du Pétrole (IFP, French Petroleum Institute). Although he had not yet worked in the water industry, he was already familiar with sensory analysis that he had conducted at ENITIAA. "Numerous studies have been made on the false tastes of water due to passing pollution episodes. But on the intrinsic taste of water without chlorine and, more generally, on consumer preferences from a global standpoint in France, virtually nothing has been done. Although I suppose that mineral water companies do have information on consumer preferences, but they have not made the information public for obvious reasons," Eric Teillet explained.

Eric Teillet used two sorts of panels to evaluate the intrinsic taste of water. One included some fifteen trained tasters, "people who are used as measuring instruments, who grade sensory descriptors on a scale of 0 to 10." The other brought together up to several hundred consumers. "For instance, we asked them simply to sort the waters whose taste was the same or similar." The young engineer explained that this made it possible to obtain a distance matrix and deduce the similarities between the different tested waters. However, it was impossible to aggregate the date with this type of methodology. "So, we had to develop our own methodology called PSP (Positionnement Sensoriel Polarisé, Polarized Sensory Positioning). The object was to ask a panel to blind test a sample and compare it with three mineral water samples. As the waters are stable over time, the resulting data could be aggregated and the taste of the sample could quickly be determined," he concluded.

The research allowed the scientist to observe that the determinants of the taste of water, regardless of where it came from, were always the same. "Actually, everything is base don its mineral quality that depends on mineral content and amount." As a result, Eric Teillet was able to show that waters with low or very low mineral content have a bitter and metallic taste. Waters with average mineral content seem fresher, without any particular taste. Waters with high mineral content have a slightly salty taste. The research also reached another conclusion, viz. the existence of three consumer profiles where 50% prefers waters with average mineral content, 30% chooses waters with low or very low mineral content, and 20% likes waters with high mineral content. "Should we believe that people preferring water with low mineral content often drink tap water, which has little mineral content?" wondered Eric Teillet. This would explain that consumer habits influence preferences. "Undeniably, the psychological aspect plays a substantial role in these preferences," he reported.

The Dijon doctoral student also attempted to determine which waters were preferred by consumers and which ones they actually drank. "Actually, the decision to drink tap water or not springs from each person's mind." So, education and information are key: they are the best pathways to drinking tap water that most people find good once the chlorine is removed.

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Eric Teillet - email: teillet@cesg.cnrs.fr

Code brève
ADIT : 61471

ADIT - Jean-François Desessard - email: jfd@adit.fr

eTech France numéro 235 (7/12/2009) - ADIT / ADIT - http://www.bulletins-electroniques.com/actualites/61471.htm