Northvale wants to cut the sodium in its best-selling sea salt kettle chip by about 30% without losing the people who buy it. The developers made two lower-sodium recipes. A central location taste test brings 150 kettle chip buyers to a focus facility, where each person tastes all three chips blind, one at a time, in a rotated order (sequential monadic). The question: can a lower-sodium chip hold its own against the one on shelf today?
Control 241
170 mg sodium per 1 oz serving. Coarse sea salt tumbled on after frying. Included so both new recipes are judged against the chip buyers already know.
Recipe A 638
120 mg sodium. Same potatoes, slice and cook as today, with about 30% less of the same salt.
Recipe B 815
120 mg sodium. A finer salt flake applied while the chips are still hot, so more of it sits on the surface, plus a slightly longer cook.
Who took part Measured
150 of 152 people who arrived completed all three ballots. One left early and one failed the attention check.
Screener criteria
Serving order
Six orders, 25 tasters each, so every chip is tasted first, second and third equally often. Orders are assigned by booth and session.
| Order | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Tasters |
|---|
One 40-minute session
Kitchen and booth controls
A separate trained panel: ten tasters trained on reference samples rated the intensity of eight attributes in each chip, three times each. Their profile is on the Attribute profile tab.
This is the ballot each taster answered after each chip, on a tablet in the booth. Liking uses the standard 9-point scale. Saltiness, crunch and toasted flavor use just-about-right scales: the middle box is the target, and the two sides show which way a recipe misses.
1. Overall, how much do you like or dislike this chip?
2. How much do you like or dislike the flavor?
3. How much do you like or dislike the saltiness?
4. How much do you like or dislike the texture?
5. How would you describe the saltiness? just about right
6. How would you describe the crunch? just about right
7. How would you describe the toasted, browned flavor? just about right
8. What, if anything, did you like or dislike about this chip?
Liking means · n=150 each Measured
| 9-point scale | 241 | 638 | 815 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall liking | 7.1b | 6.4 | 7.0b |
| Flavor liking | 7.0b | 6.2 | 6.9b |
| Saltiness liking | 7.2bc | 5.9 | 6.8b |
| Texture liking | 7.0 | 7.0 | 7.4ab |
| Appearance, white light | 7.3c | 7.2c | 6.7 |
| Top two box, overall (8 or 9) | 42% | 25% | 40% |
| Preferred after all three | 44% | 16% | 40% |
Letters mark a mean significantly higher than that chip at 95% confidence: a = 241, b = 638, c = 815. Preference: 66, 24 and 60 of 150 tasters.
Overall liking, full scale Measured
241 and 815 are at parity on overall liking. The 0.1 gap is not significant. 638 trails both on everything tied to salt.
Just-about-right results · n=150 each Measured
The two boxes on each side are combined. A chip is in good shape on an attribute when about 70% or more say just about right.
Overall liking by serving position Measured
| Chip | Tasted 1st | 2nd | 3rd |
|---|
n=50 per cell. Every chip scored about 0.3 higher when tasted first. Rotation spreads that lift evenly across the three recipes, which is why each one has to appear in every position.
Alongside the consumer test, ten tasters trained on reference samples rated how strong each attribute is in each chip, on a 0 to 15 scale, three times each. Consumers say what they like. The profile tells the developer what is physically different, so a fix can be aimed at the right attribute.
Attribute profile, mean intensity 0 to 15 Measured
Tying the panel to the consumers
Intensity table Measured
| Attribute | 241 | 638 | vs 241 | 815 | vs 241 |
|---|
Differences of 0.8 or more are significant at 95% confidence and shown in color. Ten panelists, three replicates, samples served blind in rotated order.
Penalty analysis asks how much each just-about-right miss costs in overall liking. Preference shows which chip people picked after tasting all three, in total and by the brand they buy today.
Penalty analysis · what each miss costs Measured
Each dot is one way a chip misses, such as "638 not salty enough." Across: the share of tasters who said so. Up: how much lower their overall liking was than tasters who said just about right. Dots in the shaded corner are worth fixing: at least 20% of people and at least half a point of liking lost.
Flagged misses Measured
| Chip, miss | Share | Liking | Drop |
|---|
638 not salty enough is the largest penalty in the study by far: 42% of tasters, 1.7 points.
241 not crunchy enough is a miss in the current chip that nobody asked about. 815 fixes it.
Gray rows are near misses, just under the 20% line. Watch them in the next round.
Preferred after tasting all three Measured
Current Northvale buyers still lean to 241, 51% to 36%. Buyers of other kettle brands lean to 815, 44% to 37%. Neither 241 nor 815 leads significantly in total.
What tasters wrote, coded Measured
Top three unprompted themes per chip, share of all 150 tasters. People could mention more than one.
In their words Illustrative
Typed answers to question 8, lightly trimmed. Taster numbers are study IDs.
The readout answers Northvale's question: can a lower-sodium chip replace the current one, and if so, which recipe and what should change first.
Recommendation
Advance 815,
with a lighter cook
815 matched the current chip on overall liking (7.0 against 7.1, a gap that is not significant) with 29% less sodium, and buyers of other kettle brands preferred it. The hot-applied fine flake kept most of the salt impact that 638 lost. Its one flagged miss is a toasted flavor that 24% found too strong. Shorten the cook, keep the salt system, and confirm against the current chip before switching.
Scorecard Measured
| Measure | 241 current | 638 less salt | 815 finer flake |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sodium per 1 oz serving | 170 mg | 120 mg | 120 mg |
| Overall liking (n=150) | 7.1 | 6.4 | 7.0 |
| Preferred after tasting all three | 44% | 16% | 40% |
| Preferred, other kettle buyers (n=75) | 37% | 19% | 44% |
| Saltiness just about right | 78% | 56% | 76% |
| Crunch just about right | 72% | 76% | 82% |
| Toasted flavor just about right | 84% | 84% | 74% |
| Flagged misses | Not crunchy enough | Not salty enough | Too toasted |
Overall liking for 638 is significantly lower than both other chips. The preference split between 241 and 815 (66 against 60 of 150) is not significant.
What to do, in order
Next step
Where this test could mislead