3. Application of the method to dry sausage curing

3.1 Sensory quality: essential consumer properties

The quality of a food product can be broken down into several components: nutritional, sanitary, sensory... Among these, sensory quality, and even more so its consistency, is essential for consumers, as they remember the properties of the product they are consuming: variations in sensory characteristics must be as small as possible. Different sensory properties from one purchase to the next can lead to rejection of the product by the consumer. The sensory quality of a food has several components: appearance, flavor, aroma, texture, etc., each of which is itself multidimensional. Consequently, the number of sensory characteristics and defects to be controlled on a food product is high.