This Special Room Helps Product Testers Taste Food Better

The environment in which we eat something greatly affects our perception of the food. For example, imagine the experience of wolfing down a sandwich in the car on a busy day, versus savoring it at a beautiful park after a calming nature walk.

With this difference of experience in mind, the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of California, Davis, has created a sensory immersive room, designed to test food products in different, real-world environments.

Julien Delarue, Ph.D., Associate Professor in Sensory & Consumer Science at UC Davis, emphasizes that testing food products in differing environments is vital to accurately measuring consumer preferences. In a lab environment, people do not experience the product as they normally would in their everyday lives, therefore providing unrealistic results.

“For some types of sensory sessions that relate to behavior or preferences, I would strongly advise to try to be as close as possible to real life,” Dr. Delarue said in an October 18, 2022 article on the UC Davis website. “It’s important to connect to real life; it’s crucial for the food industry.”

The sensory immersive room has six projectors that play high-definition videos of different environments such as restaurants, hiking trails, or beaches. Speakers are used to play sounds that are reminiscent of these environments. Heat lamps, fans, and water misters are also used to mimic climate.

Data collection in energy bars will be the first experiment to take place in this special room.