Sensory Science Group (SSG) had a busy outreach year in 2021 with a focus on extending our communications to the broader Food Science Community.
Inspired by the special edition of the sensory and behavioural science issue of IFST's Food Science and Technology Journal we arranged an ideas generation session for publication themes. Author teams formed and worked together to produce many articles. In fact, we produced so many ideas and articles that some overflowed into later editions.
Just a few examples of the topics that we wrote about included:
- Working with consumers and sensory panels in Covid-Times,
- Consumer reactions to COVID-19
- A day in the life of a sensory scientist
- Setting standards in sensory analysis
- Delicious plant-based products
- Genetic preferences for food
- Trends in food sensory science
- and Highlights from our workshop on Agile ways of working.
We plan to continue with our outreach momentum in 2022 and are already considering exciting and thought-leadership articles for the next journal editions.
For SSG Events, the theme for the year was the human element (as opposed to AI/data science in 2020), and we started by continuing our program of webinars on subjects such as olfaction in the time of Covid-19 and the tactile elements of food. Later in the year, we held a further webinar exploring the emerging science of genetics and food choice. In September, with what is becoming a permanent diary placement we organised one of our virtual workshops. This was focused on agile ways of working for sensory and consumer research projects and provided an opportunity to jointly host this event with the Food Innovation SIG.
Last year, the SSG Accreditation and Education group updated the intermediate level sensory science course and moved entirely to online exams. In 2022, we will complete the review and update of the syllabus for our foundation level sensory course. We also have training planned for our army of volunteer assessors who will be reviewing submissions from new course providers across the globe for these IFST certified sensory science courses.
In 2022, you will be hearing more from us in the IFST Food Science and Technology Journal and through our topical programme of webinars and events which this year will be themed towards ‘Health & Wellbeing’. We also have some exciting joint events being arranged for later this year with other organisations. In May, a conference with the European Sensory Science Society (E3S) in Reading, UK and a joint symposium with the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) in September.
Please join us at our events and don’t forget that you can always connect with the SSG via the Sensory Science Forum within the Community area of the IFST website.