Petscript®: a universal, unique and innovative sensory language for pet food

Perrine Delime - pdelime@diana-petfood.com

Agenda

• Why does the smell of pet food matter?

• How we developed a common sensory language for the smell of pet food

• What does the Petscript® bring to the pet food industry?

• Some applications for the Petscript®

INTRODUCTION

The role of smells in our lives

• Sense of smell is a primal sense for humans and animals.

• Smell allows communication between organisms and their environment.

• Smells provide pleasure (ex: the odor of flower)

or alert for danger (ex: the smell of rotten food).

• Smells are also highly associated with memory and emotions1 :

75% of our emotions are based on what we smell rather than what we see and hear2

Smell plays a crucial role in our lives

1 Shepherd (2006) Smell images and the flavour system in the human brain2 Lindstrom (2010) Brand Sense: Sensory Secrets Behind the Stuff We Buy3 Sacks (1985) The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat

« Sense of smell? I never gave it a thought. Youdon't normally give it a thought. But when I lost it – it was like being struck blind. Life lost a good deal of its savor – one doesn't realize how much "savor" is smell. You smell people, you smell books, you smell the city, you smell the spring …»3

• Pet food performance now takes into account the pet owners’ perception.

• Pet owners put effort in to selecting the best option for their pets

• Attractiveness of a pet food is largely determined by its smell

• An SPF online consumer survey1 reveals that:

- smell accounts for 25% of owners purchase decision

- 66% of dog owners and 64% of cat owners are likely to buy better smelling kibbles.

With market premiumization, smell has become a major criteria when choosing a pet food product

« Daddy, don’t you like the smell of my

favorite kibbles? »

1 SPF online consumer study conducted with MetrixLab, 2015921 dog owners and 905 cat owners in US and France2 SPF Pet Owner survey conducted by ADN marketing Science, n=300, France April 2011

Smell of pet food does matter

Pets place in our homes has changed over the years

7

Shaping the Pet food industry

FROM BACKYARD TO FRONTYARD TO KITCHEN TO TABLE

PET FEEDING PET FOODING PET CARING PET PARENTING

Giving

Leftovers

Feeding Basic

Industrial Food

Meeting pets’

nutritional needs

Sharing and enjoying

meal time together

Pet parenting

• Pets have become full members of the family:

56% of Chinese pet owners consider their pet as a family member1.

• Pet owners are now called pet parents.

• Pet parents have formed an enhanced emotional attachment with their pets.

• Pet owners treat their animal companions with luxurious products and services as a reward, symbolically, given to themselves.

1Mintel on Pet Food in China, Aug. 20162Source: MetrixLab study for Diana Pet Food, conducted in US, 316 respondents

Pet owners want to share positive and unique interactions with their pets.

The emotional dimension of feeding

• If you could ask cats and dogs what is their favorite moment of the day, they would probably answer, loud and clear: mealtime!

• The act of giving or receiving food is deeply anchored into our social behavior1

• Feeding time is the best way to show love, tenderness & care

• Meal time is a privileged moment to create emotional bonds between the pet and its owner

1Day et al. (2009) Do pets influence the quantity and choice of food offered to them by theirowners: lessons from other animals and the pre-verbal human infant?

Pet owners expectation is very high regarding the pet food product, and smell in particular

Why do we need a common language to describe the smell of pet food?

Wording of odors and flavors is highly dependent on culture, experience and learning

• Ex. 1: To described Bulgogi marinade sauces, Koreans used specific words -‘green’, ‘onion’, garlic’, and ‘black

pepper’ - compared to Japanese - ‘unique’, ‘teriyaki’1.

• Ex. 2: Novices and experts conceptualize odors differently2.

1 Park et al. (2017 ) Comparison of consumer perception and liking of bulgogi marinade sauces between Korea and Japan using flash profiling2 Sezille et al. (2014) Hedonic appreciation and verbal description of pleasant and unpleasant odors in untrained, trainee cooks, flavorists, and perfumers

Need for standard language to describe smells

Why do we need a common language to describe the smell of pet food?

• The smell of 2 different powder palatants for pet food

was described by French and Thaï people, using free description

0%

20%

40%

60%Soya sauce

Squid

Tofu

Cereals

Grilled

Vegetables

Dried grass

Biscuit

Acid

Algae

Fish

Chicken

Chocolate

Shrimp

Yeast

Crab

Description of a meat base powder palatant

% of answer by descriptor

0%

20%

40%

60%Soya sauce

Squid

Tofu

Cereals

Grilled

Vegetables

Dried grass

Biscuit

Acid

Algae

Fish

Chicken

Chocolate

Shrimp

Yeast

Crab

Description of a fish base powder palatant

% of answer by descriptor

1 SPF sensory study conducted in 2015

There is a crucial need to unify the language to describe the smell of pet food

Describing the smell of pet food

• Common sensory languages were published to describe the smell of bread, coffee,

wine, and even cars!

• Human sensory has been done previously on dry and wet pet food1,2

• Market references have mostly been used as reference standards for the description of

smells1

• Market references are not time stable and not available in every country

1 Di Donfrancesco et al., 20122 Koppel 2013

Pet food industry is missing a time stable and reproducible tool to describe the smell of pet food

Petscript® creation process

Petscript® creation process

Step 1

Review available samples

• Literature on pet food1,2

• Free generation of descriptors on a selection of relevant market products

Step 2

Design of reference standards

• For each semantic terms

• Specifically designed for pet food

• Validation with the expert panel

Step 3

Validation of the references standards

• Training of 25 expert judges on the reference standards

• Sensory evaluation of world market products

2 semantic lists of odors 40 standards:

For Wet and Dry pet food

Final validation of Petscript®

1Koppel K. 2014. Sensory analysis of pet foods. J Sci Food Agric; 94: 2148-21532Pickering G. J. 2008. Optimizing the sensory characteristics and acceptance of canned cat food:use of a human taste panel. Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition.

What does the Petscript® bring to pet industry ?• Reproducible, time stable and objective.

• 25 references for wet pet food, and 25 references for dry pet food.

• Both cats and dogs food.

• Univocal link between an odor and a word (called standard).

Wet Petscript® Dry Petscript®

Wet

15

Dry

1510

Focus on wet Petscript®

Grilled

Smoked

Burnt sugar

Caramel

EMPYREUMATIC

Bloody

Liver

GAMEY

Applications of Petscript®

Application of Petscript® - sensory method

• Expert panel trained on dry and wet Petscript®.

• Set of pet food market product

• Blind coded products.

• Rate All That Apply (RATA) on a four point scale

+ Optional free description.

• Statistical treatment:

Principal Component Analysis (PCA)

and hierarchical classification (AHC)

Set of blind coded kibbles

Application of Petscript® - evaluation of market products

• 40 cats and dogs kibbles from the Chinese and French markets

• Dry Petscript and RATA method

• 20 expert judges

1) Smell of kibbles: France vs. China

2) Focus on dog kibbles: olfactory mapping

1) Smell of kibbles: France vs. China• On the French market:

Dominating smells: ‘cereal like’, ‘viscera’ and ‘livery’.

Overall smell is more intense, more ‘viscera’, ‘pungent’ and ‘livery’.

• On the Chinese market:

Dominating smells: ‘cereal like’, ‘meaty cooked’ and ‘grilled’.

Overall smell is more ‘toffee’ and ‘cocoa’.

0

1

2

3

France

China

Average intensity of each olfactory note

0

2

4

6

8

10

average France average China

Overall smell intensity

Indicates a significant dfference

2) Focus on dog kibbles: olfactory mapping

• 20 dog kibble products (from the French and Chinese markets)

2) Focus on dog kibbles: olfactory mapping

• 4 main clusters.

• Cluster SWEET contains only Chinese dog kibbles

• Cluster GRILLED MEAT contains only French kibbles

• 3 isolated products.

• For FISH and GRILLED MEAT, good correlation between recipe claimed on the packaging and perceived smell.

++ viscera, silageand overall intensity

Cluster GRILLED MEAT++ meaty cooked, ++ smoked, ++ grilled, ++ liver

Cluster SWEET++ cacao, ++ toffee

Cluster FISH++ fish, + seaweed

Axis 2 - 25%

Axis 1 - 30%

Cluster FAT++ fatty/rancid

+ grilled and olives

+ condensed milk and biscuits

Other olfactory mappings

Come to our booth & discuss about it!

Olfactory mappings of wet cat food and dry cat food were also built

Different olfactory space and other clusters

CONCLUSIONS

And now… What if you could do this:

Cluster GRILLED MEAT++ meaty cooked, ++ smoked, ++ grilled, ++ liver

Cluster SWEET++ cacao, ++ toffee

Cluster FISH++ fish, + seaweed

Axis 2 - 25%

Axis 1 - 30%

Cluster FAT++ fatty/rancid

Using innovative specifically designed flavored ingredients

Without compromising palatability…

Cluster GRILLED MEAT++ meaty cooked, ++ smoked, ++ grilled, ++ liver

Cluster SWEET++ cacao, ++ toffee

Cluster FISH++ fish, + seaweed

Axis 2 - 25%

Axis 1 - 30%

Cluster FAT++ fatty/rancid

Or that:

Without compromising palatability…

Using innovative specifically designed flavored ingredients

Or even dream…

Cluster GRILLED MEAT++ meaty cooked, ++ smoked, ++ grilled, ++ liver

Cluster SWEET++ cacao, ++ toffee

Cluster FISH++ fish, + seaweed

Axis 2 - 25%

Axis 1 - 30%

Cluster FAT++ fatty/rancid

Without compromising palatability…

Using innovative specifically designed flavored ingredients

Conclusions

• Petscript® is a universal sensory language for dry and wet pet food.

• New opened perspectives with the Petscript®:

1. Position the different pet food products on the olfactory mappings.

2. Link smells with owners preferences and their emotions related to the product smell.

3. Couple olfactory notes and animal preferences.

Come to our booth if you would like to smell the Petscript®!