To test new products we have the science labs you might expect, but we also have a Sensory Department. And if you’ve ever wanted to be a chocolate taster, yes, this is where it happens!
Sensory science has been around since the 1950s; it helps to ensure that Cadbury products always taste exactly the way you like them, and allows us refine recipes so we end up with the most delicious and appealing products possible.
There are 150 qualified tasters at Cadbury, who all have other jobs in the company. They’re grouped into panels to test different things, and will be called in to the tasting booths to try maybe eight different samples at a time.
Each booth is screened off from the next one, so tasters can really focus on what they’re doing. And the whole room has red lights, so they don’t get distracted by differences in the look of the samples – which is particularly useful when we try and trick them by throwing in a sample of a rival brand!
In the Sensory Department it’s not about personal preference. Instead our tasters have to give marks against a scale for different attributes of the samples. For new products, a sensory ‘map’ is made, describing precisely what they should taste like. And this means that Cadbury can keep on monitoring the taste of a product to check, for instance, that a chocolate bar made in five years time still tastes exactly like it should do.
Read more about Tasting Techniques