Sensory Panel

At Saint-Gobain, we understand that preserving the sensory quality of food and beverages is essential to maintaining brand trust and consumer satisfaction. That’s why we offer a specialized Sensory Panel designed to evaluate how tubing materials interact with your products—ensuring that taste and aroma remain uncompromised throughout processing.

Our expert panel conducts application-specific testing under simulated use conditions, providing actionable insights that go beyond standard regulatory compliance. Whether you're developing a new product or troubleshooting an existing system, our Sensory Panel helps you make informed decisions about tubing materials.

Food & Beverage

Odor-Sensitive Environments

The Sensory Panel was trained using the Arthur D. Little's Flavor Profile Method, which emphasizes structured, consensus-based evaluation of aroma and flavor. Panelists underwent extensive training to ensure consistent and objective assessments, enabling them to detect subtle sensory changes in products. This method supports reliable evaluation of materials in contact with food and beverages.

This video offers a behind-the-scenes look at how Saint-Gobain’s Sensory Panel was formed and trained to detect subtle flavor and aroma changes in food and beverage applications. Through a year-long training process, panelists developed their sensory acuity to evaluate tubing materials using taste and smell—ensuring product integrity where it matters most.

Customized Testing to Protect Flavors and Aromas
Benchmark Testing
Simulated Use Conditions
Flavor Scalping and Crossover
Flavor and Aroma Retention Analysis
Support for Tubing Material Selection

We offer tailored evaluations that reflect your specific product formulations and processing conditions, ensuring relevance and accuracy. Our testing also replicates real-world operating scenarios—such as temperature, flow, and pressure—to validate tubing performance under actual use.

Our benchmark testing compares Saint-Gobain tubing against competitor products to assess sensory impact and overall performance. This helps you make informed decisions based on objective, side-by-side data.

Testing protocols replicate real-world operating and sanitization environments, providing results that reflect actual performance in your system.

We assess how tubing materials may absorb or transfer flavors, helping you avoid unwanted taste contamination between product batches.

Our trained panel uses certified organoleptic methods to determine how well tubing maintains the original sensory characteristics of your product over time.

With deep industry knowledge and sensory science expertise, our team guides you in choosing the optimal tubing solution for your specific application.

Background: Saint-Gobain tubing is used in a wide range of food and beverage dispensing applications, including coffee machines as
well as carbonated beverage and beer lines. Each of these applications has distinct requirements and a flavor or aroma profile that must be preserved. The flexible plastic tubing in food and beverage systems can have a significant impact on the consumer experience and potentially impact brand perception and sales. Saint-Gobain offers the testing resources and expertise of a Sensory Panel, trained to the Arthur D. Little method for organoleptic analysis.
Problem: A beer dispensing equipment manufacturer approached Saint-Gobain after receiving customer feedback about off-notes in beer dispensed through their systems. Despite conducting internal testing, they found no issues with the brewing process and identified the tubing used in the beer tap system as the potential source of the sensory deviation. They approached Saint-Gobain for help with the investigation and for a review of the tubing specification for their system.
Testing Approach & Solution: Saint-Gobain worked with the beer dispensing equipment manufacturer to coordinate a visit to an impacted brewery. After reviewing the brewing process and dispensing system design, team members developed a custom test protocol to simulate the brewery’s operating environment and sanitization procedures. A blind benchmarking assessment showed the off-note from the current tubing exceeded the threshold for customer complaints. Once identified, the study was repeated with various beverage tubing products. A Saint-Gobain tubing solution was identified that did not introduce off-notes or alter the intended flavor profile. Since implementation, the brewery has consistently delivered beer that meets quality expectations. Following the investigation, Saint-Gobain worked with sensory experts to train employees in the methods used—forming what is now Saint-Gobain’s Sensory Panel.

The Sensory Panel continues to support product validation and development by testing Saint-Gobain tubing across a wide range of food and beverage products—including water, soda, beer, juice, milk, and mayonnaise—at various temperatures. These evaluations ensure our solutions meet the sensory demands of diverse applications.

Interested in learning how our Sensory Panel can support your application? Contact us today to learn more about our advanced testing capabilities.