Latest Texture Analysis in Research: Acoustics

There’s an entire industry dedicated to making foods crispy. Ever wondered why we are so drawn to the snap of a potato chip or the crackle of fried chicken – it’s down to biology, psychology and an incredible amount of engineering.

Crispness is a critical attribute of quality for crispy products, which can be evaluated through both instrumental and sensory analysis.  Here is a round-up of the type of research that is going on around the world into this amazing textural feature.

Popping Candy for Drug Delivery – Acoustic Measurement on a Texture Analyser

Popping candy, often known by various brand names, uses pressurised carbon dioxide gas trapped in a sugar matrix to cause popping noises and crackling sensations when the gas is released in the moisture and temperature of the mouth. 

Popping candy was invented decades ago to be sold as confectionery. More recently, however, food manufacturers and chefs have been incorporating it into chocolate and other types of food to provide an additional point of interest. It is not only food that has benefited from the invention; the pharmaceutical industry is also becoming wise to this interesting ingredient.

Measuring snap, crackle and pop...

Once product developers have formulated a winning ‘noisy’ food product, the aim would be to ensure the consistency of this signature quality of the product during manufacture. 

Every brand knows that importance of consumer loyalty lies in the consistency of their product quality, be it flavour, appearance or texture. So the measurement of a product's acoustic signature is key to determining the gold standard product ‘noise’ for the purpose of quality control of all future batches of the product.

This post follows on from our previous blog post entitled When sound is a product's signature and provides a few application examples of the measurement of acoustic emission.

When sound is a product's signature

We’ve just finished reading a great article, ‘Eating with our ears: assessing the importance of the sounds of consumption on our perception and enjoyment of multisensory flavour experiences’ by Charles Spence.

“What we hear when we bite into a food or take a sip of a drink – be it the crunch of the crisp or the fizz of the carbonation in the glass – plays an important role in our multisensory perception of flavour, not to mention in our enjoyment of the overall multisensory experience of eating or drinking".

We couldn’t agree more…

Let's get cracking - tips and tricks for successful fracturability testing

FRACTURABILITY is the tendency of a material to fracture, crumble, crack, shatter or fail upon the application of a relatively small amount of force or impact.

It is usually displayed by a product of high degree of hardness and low degree of cohesiveness and is commonly the textural property possessed by baked goods, snacks and generally 'dry' products. 

Fracturability encompasses crumbliness, crispiness, crunchiness and brittleness. A material is brittle if it is liable to fracture when subjected to stress. That is, it has little tendency to deform (or strain) before fracture and usually makes a snapping sound.

Assessing single point fracture

Sometimes you quite simply want to measure the force to break something in the middle.  Many products exist in a solid bar form and as such their snap strength – or force to break – is of interest.

A Three Point Bend test mimics the breaking of the product in half by supporting a bar with guides positioned a suitable distance apart and pushing down centrally with a curved blade from the top. A low force is indicative of a product which requires little effort by the consumer to break whilst the distance at the break point indicates the degree of flexibility, or conversely brittleness, that the product possesses.