Sensory changes in liquid milk during storage and the effect on consumer acceptance

The acceptance of dairy products by consumers is generally determined by the product's sensory characteristics. These characteristics are a result of various changes in the product and the surrounding environment. The purpose of this paper is to report on a detailed sensory and consumer investigation of the changes in liquid skimmed milk held over an eight day period at three different storage temperatures: 1°C, 5°C and 10°C. Results of an objective sensory profile and subsequent data analysis revealed that sensory changes in milk could be described and quantified, clearly indicating the product's shelf‐life profile. Product acceptability as perceived by consumers was undertaken on a subset of samples, illustrating the points at which consumers noticed significant changes. Overall, as the samples went through their shelf‐life at the higher temperature they became less acceptable. The final part of the experiment used statistical modelling procedures to interpret and understand the data. As expected, it was shown that products became more stale during storage, and that temperature of storage affected the rate of staling, this being most marked at the higher temperature. Staleness was related to the attributes vegetable, sour, cardboard, chalky and mouthcoating.