title: Monitoring the sensory quality of canned white asparagus through cluster analysis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  White asparagus is one of the 30 vegetables most consumed in the world. This paper unifies the stages of their sensory quality control. The aims of this work were to describe the sensory properties of canned white asparagus and their quality control and to evaluate the applicability of agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC) for classifying and monitoring the sensory quality of manufacturers.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Sixteen sensory descriptors and their evaluation technique were defined. The sensory profile of canned white asparagus was high flavor characteristic, little acidity and bitterness, medium firmness and very light fibrosity, among other characteristics. The dendrogram established groups of manufacturers that had similar scores in the same set of descriptors, and each cluster grouped the manufacturers that had a similar quality profile.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The sensory profile of canned white asparagus was clearly defined through the intensity evaluation of 16 descriptors, and the sensory quality report provided to the manufacturers is in detail and of easy interpretation. AHC grouped the manufacturers according to the highest quality scores in certain descriptors and is a useful tool because it is very visual. © 2015 Society of Chemical Industry.
authors.affiliation: Sensory Analysis Laboratory, Departamento Ciencias del Medio Natural, Universidad Pública de Navarra, Campus Arrosadía, E-31006, Pamplona, (NA), Spain.
authors.forename: Inés
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Arana
authors.affiliation: Sensory Analysis Laboratory, Departamento Ciencias del Medio Natural, Universidad Pública de Navarra, Campus Arrosadía, E-31006, Pamplona, (NA), Spain.
authors.forename: Francisco C
authors.initials: FC
authors.lastname: Ibañez
authors.affiliation: Sensory Analysis Laboratory, Departamento Ciencias del Medio Natural, Universidad Pública de Navarra, Campus Arrosadía, E-31006, Pamplona, (NA), Spain.
authors.forename: Paloma
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Torre
mesh_terms: D027761:Asparagus Plant / Q000737:chemistry*; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D005519:Food Preservation / Q000379:methods*; D057141:Food, Preserved / Q000032:analysis; D006801:Humans; D009812:Odorants / Q000032:analysis; D012677:Sensation; D013649:Taste
keywords: asparagus; cluster analysis; descriptive analysis; panel performance; sensory quality control; sensory reference