Functional Handmade Minions – Consumers and Experienced Tasters SensoryEvaluation of the New Product

The study examines consumer sensory preferences of 12 different handmade pastry products in the form of minions, made of rice and flaxseed flour, tapioca starch with natural taste ingredients and with addition of prebiotic (inulin), herbs and other ingredients. The sensory evaluation was performed by professionals (experienced tasters). Preferred minion flavour was tested at group of 324 consumers (hotel guests) of different nationality. ANOVA and t-test were performed to reveal differences in attitudes related to socio-demographic characteristics of the consumers. Also, determination of taste preferences according to consumer nationality was examined as an additional consumer care aspect. The evaluation of equality of the samples’ average rates, as well as the groups of minions, is done by parametric or nonparametric model of variance analysis. Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied in order to group the investigated minions regarding their sensory properties, while the sum of ranking differences (SRD) was used to determine the minions with the best sensory properties. Consumers and experienced tasters have almost the same opinion about the sensory quality of minions, which indicates that assessment of the consumer can be considered as a representative opinion in the near future. Such functional food – minions could be widely used as a substitute for the most common commercial sweets rich in sugar and fat.