The challenge
Many people eat too few vegetables. One of the reasons for this is the taste of vegetables. A large number of vegetables such as Brussels sprouts, chicory and broccoli are often perceived as too bitter and therefore less tasty. Unilever developed several prototype spice mixes that mask the bitter taste and thus increase the acceptance of these bitter vegetables.
The approach
Unilever developed four prototype spice mixes. For the taste test, these spice mixes were added to a puree of various cooked bitter vegetables, including Brussels sprouts, broccoli, chicory and kale. For reference, a mixture of these bitter vegetables without spice mix was also tested. Essensor deployed its trained sensory panel. These panel members are the objective tasters of Essensor. The panel members were presented with the five products ‘blindly’. Their assignment was to rank the products from least to most bitter and assign intensity scores.
"The collaboration with Essensor was fast, effective and pleasant. Their expertise and customer-oriented approach made it possible to achieve our goals in a smooth and effective manner."
The result
The research gave Unilever clear insights into the direction they were looking for. The mixture without spice mix turned out to be significantly more bitter than the other four prototypes. In addition, some prototypes showed themselves to be more effective at masking the bitter flavors than others. This enabled Unilever to select the right prototype and take the next step in their development process. Unilever introduced the SUPERKUB in Sweden (Supertasters). Would Supertasters like these bitter greens now? Watch it in this video.
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