You know what you like, but what about everyone else? A case study on incomplete block segmentation of white-bread consumers
“One man’s meat is another man’s poison.” There will always be a wide range of consumer liking response across any product category. Cluster analysis can provide consumer segments based upon common liking that reflect underlying sensory preferences. To determine valid population segments requires a large sample of consumers. As the number of products tested by each consumer increases, experimental bias degrades the data quality. A limited number of well-designed incomplete sample sets can provide cleaner responses. The challenge in this study was to collect 200 valid consumer responses for each of 12 commercial white breads whilst minimizing fatigue.
Findlay, C.J. (2012). You know what you like, but what about everyone else? A case study on incomplete block segmentation of white-bread consumers. In Meeting of the Statistical Society of Canada. June 3-6, 2012. Guelph, Ontario, Canada.