Panel and Panelist Performance in the Sensory Evaluation of Black Ripe Olives from Spanish Manzanilla and Hojiblanca Cultivars

There is vast experience in the application of sensory analysis to green Spanish-style olives, but ripe black olives (≈1 × 10⁶ kg for 2016/2017) have received scarce attention and panelists have less experience on the evaluation of this presentation. Therefore, the study of their performance during the assessment of this presentation is critical. Using previously developed lexicon, ripe olives from Manzanilla and Hojiblanca cultivars from different origins were sensory analysed according to the Quantitative Descriptive Analysis (QDA). The panel (eight men and six women) was trained, and the QDA tests were performed following similar recommendations than for green olives. The data were examined while using SensoMineR v.1.07, programmed in R, which provides a diversity of easy to interpret graphical outputs. The repeatability and reproducibility of panel and panelists were good for product characterisation. However, the panel performance investigation was essential in detecting details of panel work (detection of panelists with low discriminant power, those that have interpreted the scale in a different way than the whole panel, the identification of panelists who required training in several/specific descriptors, or those with low discriminant power). Besides, the study identified the descriptors of hard evaluation (skin green, vinegar, bitterness, or natural fruity/floral).