Enhancing Sensory Panel Efficiency for a Multinational Food Company

Challenge

A multinational food ingredients company was experiencing increased demand from internal customers for additional sensory panel services. The incumbent panel was comprised of part-time panellists with limited flexibility and availability to support increasing business needs. This caused some inconsistency in data output, with a challenge for the client to provide management and coordination of the panel.

Solution

The provision of the sensory panel would be outsourced to Synergy Scientific Solutions as an independent and trusted partner. This would require an amalgamation of existing panel members with new recruits to create a balanced panel to produce, reliable, and useable data.

Synergy provided a dedicated, experienced Account Manager to work directly with the customer and understand their specific business needs. A recruitment campaign was initiated utilising Synergy’s expertise and contacts within the sensory area. This was followed by a rigorous screening exercise to ensure individuals were recruited with the appropriate skills and experience as well as ascertaining whether any allergies or health complications could eliminate individuals from continuing the process.

Successful candidates moved forward to an assessment day, where interviews and acuity tests were completed under the expert supervision of the Client Sensory Manager.

Acuity results were analysed alongside interview feedback to determine the most suitable candidates. Synergy then developed full training plans with the customer to ensure the panellists had a clear understanding and expectations of their role in achieving agreed milestones during training to support them in becoming productive and engaged members of the panel team.

Outcome

Through Synergy’s outsourced sensory panel management service, the customer is now providing a 67 % increase in panel capacity to their internal customer base. A clear statement of Work (SOW) and an agreed set of KPIs is regularly reviewed with the customer via quarterly business reviews ensuring Synergy effectively manages their sensory panel, feeding back successes and solutions to meet changing business needs.

By providing a flexible pool of trained panellists to the client, Synergy can cover both planned and unplanned absence, giving the client confidence that results will not be compromised, or projects delayed. Synergy ensures all training, management, safety, and HR needs of the panellists are met, reducing the client’s workload and allowing their customer team to concentrate on commercial projects and generation of reproducible, accurate sensory data.

Looking for a scientific services partner?

The team from Synergy Scientific Management Solutions work with laboratories across the world, equipping laboratories with expert talent that catalyse laboratory success, from within. 

At Synergy, we help laboratories embrace adaptability with flexible teams who we source, manage and develop ourselves.

Interested in hearing more?

You can talk to our friendly team about your resourcing requirements at: synergyqueries@srgtalent.com