GENERALIZED PROCRUSTES ANALYSIS OF COFFEE BRANDS TESTED BY 5 EUROPEANSENSORY PANELS

Generalized Procrustes analysis has been applied to mean panel data fr om five European panels regarding the sensory characteristics of eight coffee samples. Each of the panels used its own set of attributes. Th e average product configuration accounted for 92% of the variation in the individual (panel) configurations. This average configuration was nearly 2-dimensional, as were the product configurations for most of t he panels. The majority of the attributes after Procrustes matching co rrelated highly with similarly named attributes from other panels. Tha nks to the good match between the 'national' product configurations, i t is possible to relate the consumer preferences in different countrie s to a common European set of sensory descriptors. (C) 1998 Elsevier S cience Ltd. All rights reserved.