Supporting User Interaction in Flavor Sampling Trials Edwin Costello, Lorraine McGinty UCD School of Computer Science and Informatics, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland edwin.costello@ucd.ie, lorraine.mcginty@ucd.ie Abstract Sensory innovation in the flavor industry is a pro- cess that relies heavily on user involvement to carry out critical sampling trials at a high cost. We are interested in how recommender systems, in par- ticular, have an important role to play in view of addressing some of their key challenges and con- straints. We describe a purpose-built sensory rec- ommendation prototype with the potential to: (1) help users navigate a vast and complex solution space using very limited user preference informa- tion, (2) reduce the time it takes to gather critical in- formation about individual user flavor preferences, and at the same time (3) allow for a broader cov- erage of the flavor space to be evaluated during in- house flavor development trials, thus potentially re- ducing related overheads (e.g., time and money). In addition, we summarize some of the findings following a real-user evaluation of the prototype recently carried out by a leading Flavor industrial partner. 1 Introduction The prevalent user endorsement of online search and discov- ery, coupled with the ever-growing expansion of web-based information/product catalogs, has provided a valuable prov- ing ground for recommendation technologies. Noted as a par- ticularly effective solution to the information overload prob- lem, recommender technology has been adopted by online business providers keen to help customers find suitable gifts or movies (e.g., Amazon.com, Netflix .com), or keep track of news relevant to their interests (e.g., DailyMe.com). In this paper, we focus on the unusual domain of flavor sci- ence and sensory innovation. We discuss how user interaction and feedback is critical to the flavor development process and show how techniques and ideas from recommender technol- ogy can be used to enhance the current best practice in the area. The flavor development and innovation task is subject to a number of challenges. Our work seeks to introduce a layer of intelligence, in the form of a recommender system, which will support the process of gathering user preferences and provide avenues for further enhancement. In particular we aim to improve the form of interaction that users take part in when providing this important feedback. Our approach is discussed in Section 2 following a sum- mary of the relevant methodology and specialist practice in this area. In Section 3 we describe the operation of our sen- sory recommender prototype, before summarizing in Section 4 some of our findings following a recent real-user evaluation of the prototype conducted onsite by our specialist industrial partner in the USA. By way of conclusion, in Section 5, we discuss next steps and position our research with reference to related work in the general areas of recommender systems and flavor science. 2 Flavor Science & Innovation The flavor industry is a complex, far-reaching, highly spe- cialist, and profitable business 1 . While we may not be con- sciously aware, it is a business that services us all as we con- duct our day-to-day lives. Much of the food and drink we consume is likely to contain some flavor or fragrance creation (from soft drinks to salad dressing, ice-cream, beer, etc.). All of these pass through many stages of rigorous testing and vali- dation before they take up residence on the supermarket shelf. We conduct our daily lives largely unaware of the amount of specialist consultation, time, energy, and money that pre- ceded the production of many of the products we buy and certainly the food we eat. The remainder of this section intro- duces our industrial partner and provides a general overview of their flavor innovation process and the key challenges that are the focus of this work. 2.1 Introducing Our Flavor Innovation Partner Our partner, Givaudan SA, is the world leader in sensory in- novation within the flavors industry 2 . Sensory innovation in- volving flavors is a very knowledge-intensive business requir- ing experienced flavorists 3 , information on customer require- ments, user preferences, flavor compounds and ingredients, all of which must be combined effectively to produce a desir- able flavor . To this end our industry collaborator, Givaudan SA, has led the way in recognizing, developing and applying 1 Givaudan SA., Annual report 2007 2 Givaudan SA was the first company to establish itself as a cre- ator of tastes 3 A team of highly experienced scientific experts in the discipline.