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Research paper
Sensory analysis of characterising flavours: evaluating tobacco product odours using an expert panel
  1. Erna J Z Krüsemann1,2,
  2. Marlou P Lasschuijt2,
  3. C de Graaf2,
  4. René A de Wijk3,
  5. Pieter H Punter4†,
  6. Loes van Tiel4,
  7. Johannes W J M Cremers1,
  8. Suzanne van de Nobelen1,
  9. Sanne Boesveldt2,
  10. Reinskje Talhout1
  1. 1 Centre for Health Protection, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Bilthoven, The Netherlands
  2. 2 Division of Human Nutrition and Health, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands
  3. 3 Division of Food and Biobased Research, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands
  4. 4 OP&P Product Research BV, Utrecht, The Netherlands
  1. Correspondence to Dr Reinskje Talhout, Centre for Health Protection, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), 3721 MA Bilthoven, The Netherlands; Reinskje.Talhout{at}rivm.nl

  • ↵†Deceased.

Abstract

Objectives Tobacco flavours are an important regulatory concept in several jurisdictions, for example in the USA, Canada and Europe. The European Tobacco Products Directive 2014/40/EU prohibits cigarettes and roll-your-own tobacco having a characterising flavour. This directive defines characterising flavour as ‘a clearly noticeable smell or taste other than one of tobacco […]’. To distinguish between products with and without a characterising flavour, we trained an expert panel to identify characterising flavours by smelling.

Methods An expert panel (n=18) evaluated the smell of 20 tobacco products using self-defined odour attributes, following Quantitative Descriptive Analysis. The panel was trained during 14 attribute training, consensus training and performance monitoring sessions. Products were assessed during six test sessions. Principal component analysis, hierarchical clustering (four and six clusters) and Hotelling’s T-tests (95% and 99% CIs) were used to determine differences and similarities between tobacco products based on odour attributes.

Results The final attribute list contained 13 odour descriptors. Panel performance was sufficient after 14 training sessions. Products marketed as unflavoured that formed a cluster were considered reference products. A four-cluster method distinguished cherry-flavoured, vanilla-flavoured and menthol-flavoured products from reference products. Six clusters subdivided reference products into tobacco leaves, roll-your-own and commercial products.

Conclusions An expert panel was successfully trained to assess characterising odours in cigarettes and roll-your-own tobacco. This method could be applied to other product types such as e-cigarettes. Regulatory decisions on the choice of reference products and significance level are needed which directly influences the products being assessed as having a characterising odour.

  • advertising and promotion
  • public policy
  • prevention

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2017-054152

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors RT obtained study funding. All authors participated in the HETOC consortium and contributed to the study design and final HETOC report. MPL carried out the experimental work and data analysis. EJZK drafted the manuscript.

    • Funding The HETOC study was funded under the EU Health Programme (2008–2013) in the frame of a service contract with the Consumers, Health, Agriculture and Food Executive Agency (CHAFEA) acting on behalf of the European Commission (contract number 20146202).

    • Disclaimer The views expressed in the study are those of HETOC consortium and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the Executive Agency or the European Commission.

    • Competing interests This manuscript is an adaptation of part of the report entitled ‘Mapping of best practices and development of testing methods and procedures for identification of characterizing flavors in tobacco products’ written by the HETOC Consortium, consisting of the same authors as the current manuscript.

    • Patient consent Not required.

    • Ethics approval The study was approved by the Medical Ethical Committee of Wageningen University (NL5077208114).

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.