Sensory analysis, a relatively new scientific discipline, evaluates the characteristics of a food product that engage our senses, identifying and quantifying each attribute.  

Contemporary approaches to food quality define it as a combination of internal and external features that satisfy the consumer’s psycho-physiological needs. This perspective empowers consumers to make choices based on sensory perception and prior organoleptic experiences.

As such, producers are responsible for ensuring product safety and compliance with health standards, while consumers must navigate a wide array of options using their senses as a guide.

The primary senses involved in perceiving the organoleptic properties of food are taste, smell, and sight, while hearing and touch play more secondary roles. These properties are evaluated using all five senses: appearance, colour, and shape through sight; texture and related traits (such as liquidity, viscosity, and brittleness) through touch and hearing; aroma through smell; taste via the gustatory sense; and flavour through the combined perception of taste and smell.