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Sensory Science for 1.5 Billion People

Riëtte de Kock is working to democratize sensory science in Africa, factoring in the food preferences and cultural traditions of the continent’s large and diverse population.
Riëtte de Kock
Danielle Beurteaux

Food Technology Magazine

At a sensory science conference in 2009, Riëtte de Kock felt very out of place.

“Everyone was speaking about chocolate and yoga,” she remembers. “I thought that the type of work I’m doing doesn’t fit in.”

But then, she says, a keynote speaker at the conference asked whether sensory science was only for affluent societies—exactly the question de Kock wanted to hear. That’s when, she says, “I knew what I was doing was important.”

A professor in the Department of Consumer and Food Sciences at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, de Kock has worked to develop an ambitious …

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Hero Image: Photo courtesy of Riëtte de Kock

Authors

  • Danielle Beurteaux Writer

    Danielle Beurteaux is a journalist who writes about science, technology, and food.

Categories

  • Sensory Science

  • Food Sciences

  • Research

  • Food Technology Magazine