One purpose of this study was to establish a hurdle for the sensory
quality levels during distribution. When the preference at the
end of the shelf life was approximately 33% compared with 67%
preference at the beginning of the product’s shelf life, the sensory
quality level was significantly lower at the end of the product’s
shelf life than that at the beginning. This percentage was calculated
from the significance table for paired preference tests presented in
Stone and Sidel (1993) at a significance level a = 0.05 with 50 trials.
The predicted SQI was 0.90 at 33% preference level at the end of a
product’s shelf life and was obtained using Eq. (2). Thus, an SQI of
0.90 could be set the hurdle for sensory quality. Other SQI hurdles
(higher or lower than 0.90) could be also possible, because it depends
on the variations in sensory quality of products during distribution.
The first step for setting the SQI as a hurdle might be
the analysis of regression of SQI and preference (%) data. A preference
(%) level at the end of shelf life might be easily determined as
a hurdle than that of SQI. Then the regression equation between
SQI and preference (%) could be used for prediction of the SQI point
as a hurdle with a certain preference (%).