Title: Sensory evaluation of commercial coffee brands in Colombia

Authors: Edis Mauricio Sanmiguel Jaimes; Igor Barahona Torres; Héctor Hugo Pérez-Villarreal

Addresses: Departamento de Administración de empresas, Universidad Libre – Colombia – seccional Socorro, Calle 21 No. 7-75 San Gil, Santander, Colombia ' Department of Statistics, Mathematics and Computer Science, Cátedras CONACYT, Autonomous University of Chapingo, 56230 Km. 37.5 highway México-Texcoco, Mexico ' Department of Management and Marketing, Popular Autonomous University of Puebla State, 17 Sur 901, Barrio de Santiago, Puebla, Mexico

Abstract: Colombian coffee farmers have traditionally focused their efforts on activities including seeding, planting and drying. Strategic issues to successfully compete in the industry, such as branding, marketing and consumer research, have been neglected. In this research, we apply a type of sensory analysis, based on several statistical techniques used to investigate the key features of ten different brands of Colombian coffee. A panel composed of 32 judges investigated nine different attributes related to flavour, fragrance, sweetness and acidity, among others. The last section presents the conclusions reached regarding customer preference and brands profiles.

Keywords: sensory evaluation; coffee quality; product segmentation; Colombia; commercial coffee brands; branding; marketing; consumer research; flavour; fragrance; sweetness; acidity; customer preferences; brand profiles.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBSR.2015.071831

International Journal of Business and Systems Research, 2015 Vol.9 No.3, pp.195 - 213

Received: 25 Oct 2014
Accepted: 13 Feb 2015
Published online: 19 Sep 2015 *

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