Cargill · Patented · Response surface methodology
Optimizing cheese and bacon levels in stuffed burgers
How much cheese and how much bacon maximizes consumer likeability? Too little and the product is unremarkable; too much and cost, structural integrity and appeal all suffer. The answer is a surface, not a single point — a designed-experiment problem rather than a tasting exercise.
Method — response surface methodology, varying cheese and bacon inclusion across a structured design and modelling consumer likeability across the response surface to locate the optimum.
Outcome — a U.S. patent for an innovative approach to increasing the appeal of packed burgers, and a Cargill Achiever Circle Award.
Cargill · 10th Pangborn Sensory Science Symposium
A probabilistic approach to sensory shelf life
Traditional shelf-life cutoffs treat consumer rejection as a fixed threshold. It is not — it is a distribution. Framing shelf life probabilistically, grounded in behavioral science, gives a far more honest estimate of when consumers actually stop accepting a product.
Method — sensory shelf-life technique built on a probabilistic consumer approach combined with behavioral science; presented in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Outcome — Professor Guillermo Hough, author of the standard reference text on sensory shelf-life estimation, implemented the system across North American meat processing facilities.
Cargill · Global · Discrimination testing
Teaching food scientists to choose the right difference test
Difference testing fails quietly when the wrong method is chosen. A duo-trio where a tetrad was needed, or an underpowered design, produces a confident answer that is simply wrong — and formulation decisions get made on it.
Method — corporate-funded multi-market studies using duo-trio and tetrad designs, plus a training program built with the Cargill Global Core Team of Statisticians and Data Science.
Outcome — reduced business-decision risk across the portfolio and raised statistical rigor among food scientists company-wide.
McDonald’s · Campbell’s · Taco Bell · QSR & CPG
Sensory standards and formulation for national accounts
National accounts hold suppliers to sensory specifications that have to be measurable, defensible and consistent across plants and geographies — while formulation questions still need answering underneath them.
Method — owned performance management of the sensory standards required by the McDonald’s franchise. Advanced statistical design for formulation, including ideal egg content for the breakfast burrito. Reformulated Campbell’s chicken noodle soup; led ground-beef flavor quality control for Taco Bell.
Outcome — methodology work with Campbell’s generated over $2 million in new business; a consumer product-matching protocol for highly variable systems such as meats delivered $1 million in savings.
Cargill · Kansas State University · Pediatric methodology
Measuring how children accept reduced-sodium foods
Sodium reduction lives or dies on acceptance, and children are the hardest population to measure well. Standard adult scales and protocols do not transfer — they produce data that looks clean and means very little.
Method — partnered with the Kansas State University Sensory and Consumer Research Center to establish a technique that properly captured school-aged children’s acceptance.
Outcome — a validated method for a population where most sodium-reduction programs are flying blind.
Cargill · Ontario, Central America, Belgium, Brazil, China
A global sensory program across five countries
Sensory only compounds in value when it is consistent. Different plants, panels and regions produce non-comparable data unless the program itself is engineered.
Method — end-to-end sensory research at volume: 300+ CLT and HUT studies and 10+ descriptive analyses a year, with universal SOPs across Ontario, Cargill Meats Central America, the Vilvoorde innovation center, Campinas and Shanghai. In-house member panel; data-science partnership for analytical rigor.
Outcome — built and mentored a team of eight technical specialists, raising engagement from 67% to 89% over two years.
