Concept Research in Food Product Design and Development

Howard R. Moskowitz, Ph.D. is president and CEO of Moskowitz Jacobs Inc., White Plains, NY, a firm he founded in 1981. Moskowitz is a well-known experimental psychologist in the field of psychophysics (the study of perception and its relation to physical stimuli), and an inventor of world-class market research technology. Among his important contributions to market research is his 1975 introduction of psychophysical scaling and product optimization for consumer product development. A Fellow of the Institute of Food Technologists and member of numerous other professional societies, he has written/edited twelve books, published well over 250 articles, and serves on the editorial board of major journals. With colleague E.P. Koster, Moskowitz co-founded the journal Chemical Senses and Flavor, now called Chemical Senses, the leading journal in the field.

Sebastiano Porretta, Ph.D. is a senior researcher of the Italian Ministry of Industry at the Experimental Station for the Food Preservation Industry in Parma, Italy. He is well known for his research devoted to the study of the quality, and particularly the development of techniques, for a more accurate quality evaluation considering the relationships between the physico-chemical and sensory properties of food. He contributes to the Sensory and Consumer Evaluation of Food and Food Market with original approaches: the interactions between foods and the consumers. Great work was done to evaluate the effect of ingredients on food quality and consumer acceptability.
Currently, Porretta's Professor of Food Processing at the Catholic University of Piacenza, Professor of Sensory and Consumer Science at the University of Gastronomic Sciences of Pollenzo, and President of the Italian Association of Food Technology (AITA), since 1997. Additionally, Porretta is the Author/Editor of sixteen books and papers in scientific journals and a member of several boards of international peer reviewed journals.

Matthias Silcher, M.A. is assistant project director at Moskowitz Jacobs Inc. and has a background in empirical communication research, sociology and political science from the University of Berlin, Germany. His thesis, Survey by Short Messaging Service was the first academic paper on this subject. He has consulted for Kienbaum Consultants and advised as a political researcher for NFO Infratest.