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Our Collective Vision
Plant-based milk—particularly oat milk—has surged in popularity in recent years. So in June of 2019, Pacific Foods was ready to join the club, releasing a new shelf-stable oat milk. While Pacific Foods isn’t new to the non-dairy beverage space (they first started producing soy milk in 1987), they are new to oat milk, so they called in the experts to ensure a strong launch.
As more consumers replace dairy with non-dairy substitutes by choice rather than dietary need, how those non-dairy options perform in various applications will make all the difference in sales, brand trust, and consumer loyalty. Pacific Foods wanted to tout not only its product’s flavor and healthfulness, but also its versatility. A carton of Pacific Oat Milk should be able to take the consumer seamlessly from breakfast cereal to gravy to after-dinner dessert. That’s where CPG testing, or sensory analysis, comes in.
The Scoop
Setting The Table
The best way to prove performance is to test the product in different scenarios and evaluate the outcome. In order to give Pacific Foods the research to be able to definitively say that their new oat milk performs comparably to traditional dairy milk in a wide variety of applications, we designed and executed a series of tests and analysis.
We defined ten common culinary uses, from biscuits to coffee, where consumers might substitute oat milk for dairy milk. We conducted each application test with Pacific’s Oat Milk and used 2% milk as the benchmark control. Then we conducted a side-by-side analysis of flavor, texture, color, and aroma, recording our observations along with photos of the finished dishes and a recommendation or conclusion (i.e. whether the product works well in a given application or not, and why).
The Experience
The goal of our tests was not to prove that oat milk is always a good substitute for milk, but rather to give the client data to be able to confidently recommend specific applications to consumers or to suggest how to adjust typical recipes or cooking methods when swapping in Pacific Oat Milk to achieve similar outcomes. For example, while oat milk had a strong flavor when used in vanilla pudding, we noted that it could still be used in chocolate pudding, as the flavor of chocolate would overpower that of the oat milk. Additionally, Pacific Foods relied on Heart Creative’s research and analysis to know whether the product itself was ready to hit the market or if any further R&D adjustments should be made to improve performance (and drive repeat purchases) among their target consumers.
Deep culinary knowledge and the ability to make tailored recommendations is one of the benefits of doing sensory analysis with a culinary agency. Further, while many companies have their own R&D teams, getting a third party’s perspective via application testing is still important, because ultimately the product needs to perform well in a real-world setting.
The Fruits of Our Labor
At the end of testing, Heart Creative supplied Pacific Foods with an in-depth analysis of their product’s performance. We included charts for each recipe containing our observations, the recipes we used to test the product, photos of the finished dishes side by side, and our conclusions as to whether or not the product performed comparably to dairy milk. Pacific Foods shelf-stable oat milk is now widely distributed, and the packaging confidently touts the product’s versatility.
"Wonderful customer service, amazing photos, mouth watering recipe development."
Kari Davis
Pacific Foods
