The Nordic Committee for Food Methodology (NMKL) has issued guidelines on sensory evaluation of food packaging. They are in Swedish and are called Guidelines for sensory assessment of food packaging and among the authors is Emilía Martinsdóttir, project manager at Matís.
The Nordic Committee for Food Methodology (NMKL) is a committee of the Nordic Council, which is made up of representatives from all the Nordic countries. Iceland's representatives in NMKL are six from four institutions or companies, three of which are from Matís. They are Franklín Georgsson, division manager, Margrét Geirsdóttir, project manager and Heiða Pálmadóttir, department manager. The committee is one of several committees that work in a forum called Nordic forum on food.
According to the Nordic Council's website, "the aim of Nordic co - operation in food is to protect consumers' health, prevent misleading labeling and encourage the consumption of healthier foods."
NMKL's role is, among other things, to coordinate methods for testing and evaluating food in the Nordic countries, as well as to prepare instruction booklets for quality control in laboratories related to food research and in the food industry.
The guidelines cover sensory evaluation of food packaging, how to train judges and how to perform sensory evaluation. In the sensory evaluation of packaging, foods must be selected for the sensory evaluation tests and the properties of the foods must be taken into account, for example whether beverages, high-fat or low-fat foods with a low water content, dairy products, etc. In this case, a shelf life test is often carried out where the food is stored in the relevant packaging for a certain period of time. The guidelines are clear and should be useful to both food packaging manufacturers and food manufacturers. The instructions are in Swedish but we are working on translating them into English.
As stated earlier, Emilía Martinsdóttir, project manager at Matís, is one of the authors of the guidelines, while another Icelandic author is Ása Þorkelsdóttir, who worked for IFL for many years. For further information, contact Emilia at 422 5032, who has been at the forefront of the use of sensory evaluation in the food industry in Iceland for many years.