Look around in any grocery store and you’ll see some big claims: “best tasting,” “new and improved,” “now with more chocolatey flavor.” Turns out, some of them are backed up by research. Rancho Bernardo–based ChefsBest employs a bank of Bay Area chefs who taste-test everything from onion rings to gummy vitamins.
These aren’t just any chefs, though. CEO Lisa Liguori says these high-level chefs underwent tests to determine whether their palates are sensitive enough to discern and differentiate similar products and accurately “offer useful, descriptive data about what they’re tasting.”
After testing is complete, ChefsBest can then bestow a Best Taste Award to a clear winner, allowing them to claim superiority, or an Excellence Award to those judged on their own merits. Companies do pay to have their products tested, even if they don’t always come out on top.
Although Liguori says that can be a hard conversation to have, companies can use the detailed food science data they receive to improve their products.
