INTRODUCING FORWARD SensOmni
An innovative solution to Enhancing Consumer-Centric Sensory Evaluation for New Zealand SMEs
FORWARD SensOmni aims to make consumer-centric, robust sensory evaluation accessible to New Zealand SMEs, enabling data-based decision-making in the NZ market. FORWARD SensOmni serves several common research objectives, including new product development, benchmarking, quality perceptions, and identifying drivers of liking.
Why Forward?
FORWARD SensOmni leverages the expertise of FORWARD’s global insights team, which has extensive experience using sensory methodologies to assess the strength and value of NPD prototypes, benchmarking to commercially available competitors, and evaluate the value consumers attribute to your brand. Our dedicated team of senior researchers will provide strategic recommendations from insight to implication and action.
How FORWARD SensOmni Works
Aggregating the needs of multiple food and beverage companies can share the cost of accessing a statistically robust sample size for consumer-sensory evaluation. Project establishment costs are minimized by using a standardized questionnaire based on proven sensory research methodologies, and reporting costs are minimized by using a standardized “dashboard” approach.
Overview of Approach
Participants, known as FORWARD Foodies, are highly engaged with food and recruited to attend a one-hour session. The session is divided into three 20-minute periods, with each participating company evaluating up to three products per period. The standard questionnaire includes key metrics such as overall liking, purchase intent, sensory profiling, and additional optional extras.
Overall Liking, Purchase Intent, Price Potential: These metrics assess how much consumers like a product and their likelihood of purchasing it at a specific price point. They help understand the product’s acceptance and market potential.
Sensory profiling involves using the “check-all-that-apply” approach, where consumers identify all the sensory attributes they perceive in a product. Sensory profiling creates a detailed sensory profile of the product.
Open-ended questions: These allow consumers to provide additional feedback in their own words, offering qualitative insights that structured questions might not capture. AI-enabled text analysis is adopted to unveil the behind-the-scenes reasons that drive respondents’ feedback.
Brand-specific Ad-hoc questions relate to emotional response or situational appropriateness, providing further context on how consumers perceive the brand and value your products in different scenarios.
Optional extras include targeted consumer recruitment, longer periods with consumers, additional samples, alternative questionnaires, branded or packaged products, and further analysis or interpretation.
To hear more about FORWARD SensOmni, contact Carlo at carlo@forward-insight.com or James at James@forward-insight.com
