The Impact of oil Content Spesification Optimization on the Sensory Attributes of Lemon Encapsulated Flavor

Abstract

This study was done because the author had the opportunity to do an internship as a quality control intern at PT Firmenich Aromatics Indonesia. PT Firmenich Aromatics Indonesia is primarily focused on becoming the center of the Firmenich flavors supply chain for Asia, and the author was assigned to analyze these flavor products during the internship. All sensory attributes of food are referred to as taste and odor, thus these are complex sensations, so controlling the stability of taste and odor during production, storage and packaging can be challenging. In order to avoid sensory degradation, it would be preferable to encapsulate the volatile ingredients before using them in a product. The process of encapsulation involves the active material coated with an encapsulating material. Flavor encapsulation is used to provide liquid flavors in a consistent format, which makes use of emulsification in a carbohydrate matrix to maintain the stability of the active material. However, the liquid flavor could have an effect on the sensory attributes. Therefore, this study analyzes the sensory attributes of lemon encapsulated flavor with two different levels of oil content by conducting a sensory test using the methodology of the CATA and JAR. According to the findings, there is a significant difference on the odor (P-value = 0.000) and taste (P-value = 0.001) attributes between the old and new oil content. The optimization of oil content levels significantly decreases the odor of citrusy and fresh notes but increases the green notes. In addition, it decreases the taste of citrusy and green notes. However, there is no significant impact of the oil content optimization on the sweetness (P-value = 0.838) and sourness (P-value = 0.828) intensity. Eventually, this study can be used as a reference for further studies on lemon flavoring products produced by Firmenich.