Sensory and consumer research in culinary approaches to food

Encouraging food scientists to cooperate with culinary experts opens ways for optimized food offers as well as innovative products and services. Knowing better the work of professionals from the food service and gastronomy sectors brings a holistic vision enriching methodological questions of sensory and consumer scientists. It is proposed to make links between foodservice research on meal experience, mainly exploring human sciences, and sensory and consumer science. Three disciplines were selected to complement current sensory and consumer practices: semantics and the study of food culture, cognitive psychology and multisensory perception, and linguistics and dish label. Moreover, a greater basic knowledge is still needed to model the various factors influencing consumer perception, choice and preference in real-life situations, opening new avenues for further research and the modeling of the meal experience.