It has been 15 years since Dr. NJ Newton Yau started his career in sensory researches and promotion activities in Taiwan, including 10 years as he was with FIRDI where he was leading sensory researches and promotion activities and 5 years in Sinew Consulting Groups (SCG) where he is leading sensory services and promotion activities.After he left FIRDI in 2001, he founded the SCG Co., Ltd. with partners and started to provide sensory related services to foods and cosmetics industries. He had written the first sensory book in Chinese – Sensory Evaluation – fundamental and application, which is a great reference book for teachers and students in universities as well as for professionals in food industries here in Taiwan now. He also set up the sensory programs for workshops and softwares, sensory QC program (SEQC©) and sensory statistics tools(Six Little Helpers©) as examples, of course, all in Chinese.

　“It is great challenge to promote sensory works here in Taiwan as people do not understand or misunderstand them”, said by Dr. Yau, “It, however, is a great opportunity as well since you do not have real competitor in the market”, he added.

　SCG is a consulting company based in Taiwan, providing services to the food and related industries in Taiwan and Mainland China. One of the major consulting service area is sensory analysis, including difference tests, descriptive tests, consumer tests, and other specific sensory tests (eg. threshold determination and sensory shelf life study). There is an increasing demand from the international food companies who want to get more information about the consumers in Taiwan and Mainland China. SCG therefore provides proper consumer tests (FGD, CLT, HUT) as well as difference tests and descriptive tests in Taiwan and Mainland China in order to meet this demand.

　SINEW = Service of International Networking and Efficient Working

　Dr. Newton Yau, graduated from Sensory Science Center of Oregon State University, USA, is in charge of the sensory program of SCG now. Dr. Yau had been with Food Industry Research and Development Institute (FIRDI) for 10 years, where he built up his reputation in sensory academic-wise and industrial-wise. He also, therefore, accumulated all practical experiences in different product categories. Dr. Yau in SCG is also fulfills with plenty practical experience since half of the team members has been with Dr. Yau for almost 10 years.

　Human beings have relied on their sensory capabilities in choosing foods for a long time, just as their nature to live. Nowadays, people do not choose foods for survival only, but more important they choose foods based on their preference. This preference is definitely resulting from the qualities of foods. The qualities of foods include appearance, colors, odors, tastes, textures, safety, and nutrients. These quality indexes other than safety and nutrients need to be judged by human beings. Is it tasty? Does it smell good? How salty is it? How pungent is it? How bitter is it? Sensory evaluation or so called sensory analysis is the key tool to tell you the answers. By definition, sensory evaluation is using human’s sensory capabilities of vision, olfaction, gustation, audition, and tactus by employing scientific methods and combining psychological, physiological, and statistical knowledge to evaluate or analyze foods. Actually, this technology can be applied to foods, cosmetics, textiles, printing, and other livelihood industries.

　In other words, sensory is using “human beings” as a tool but employing objective methods to collect their subjective sensory responses or changes to the product. It becomes a powerful tool in the consumer-oriented days for industry people to target the [right] product. Practically, sensory not only plays an important role in R&D functions, but also play so in QA functions and marketing functions in industrial structures. Though the researches and applications in Taiwan are not as popular as in other advanced countries, more and more people are putting their efforts into this area and SCG will play her key role in this progress.