Analyzing and modelling rating data for sensory analysis in food industry

Consumers’ and experts’ preferences and perceptions of the sensory attributes of products are very important for manufacturers in the food industry, in order to avoid market disappointment and improve food quality. Indeed, appropriate sensory analyses combined with proper statistical methods allow to segment market, obtain positioning of products (brands, organizations, ...) and identify the market acceptability. This finally has a great impact upon food quality and industrial competitiveness. In this paper, we use CUB models to analyse sensory data coming from a survey on the Italian espresso.