Sensory quality control of dry-cured ham: A comprehensive methodology for sensory panel qualification and method validation

In this study, a specific sensory panel was created and qualified for sensory assessment of Spanish dry-cured ham. A strict control was carried out in order to recruit, select, train and qualify the assessors. At the beginning, 29 candidates to assessors were considered and at the end only 9 candidates satisfied the conditions required to be qualified as expert assessors of the sensory panel. Furthermore, the precision and trueness of each expert assessor were determined by the repeatability index (Ria), and intermediate precision index (IPia), and the deviation index (Dia). In the same way, the panel precision was also evaluated by a proper repeatability index (Rip) and an intermediate precision (IPip) index. The provided results were satisfactory and the sensory panel was correctly validated. Currently, the sensory panel continues performing sensory analysis of dry-cured ham.