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A highly accomplished sensory scientist and food engineer, Dr. Paula Varela is a Senior Researcher at Nofima and a Professor at NMBU (Norwegian University of Life Sciences) in Oslo. With a degree in Food Engineering from Uruguay and a PhD in Food Science from Spain, her research explores how Sensory and Consumer Sciences can drive healthier and more sustainable food behavior.
Ranked among the top 2% of the most cited food scientists globally (Stanford University), Paula has authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications and eight books. Her profound impact on the field earned her the 2024 Established Researcher Award from the European Sensory Science Society (E3S).
A leading voice in the global sensory community, Paula currently serves as Vice-Chair (and former Chair) of E3S, initiated the Sensory Science Global Group (SSGG), and is an Associate Editor for Food Quality and Preference.
Intro Voiceover: Welcome to AigoraCast. Conversations with industry experts on how new technologies are impacting sensory and consumer science.
Dr. John Ennis: Hi, I'm Dr. John Ennis, CEO at Aigora. In this episode, I enjoy speaking with Dr. Paula Varela. Paula and I shared a fascinating conversation regarding the role and risks of AI in consumer research, before discussing how sensory science can help drive healthier and more sustainable food choices. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did, and remember to subscribe to AigoraCast to hear more conversations like this one in the future.
Dr. John Ennis: Okay. Welcome back everyone to another episode of AigoraCast. Today I'm very happy to have Dr. Paula Varela on the show. A highly accomplished sensory scientist and food engineer, Dr. Paula Varela is a senior researcher at Nofima and a professor at NMBU in Oslo. With a degree in food engineering from Uruguay and a PhD in food science from Spain, her research explores how sensory and consumer science can drive healthier and more sustainable food behavior.
Ranked among the very top percentage of the most cited food scientists globally, Paula has authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications and eight books. Her profound impact on the field earned her the 2024 Established Researcher Award from the European Sensory Science Society. A leading voice in the global sensory community, Paula currently serves as vice chair and former chair of E3S, initiated the Sensory Science Global Group, and is an associate editor for Food Quality and Preference. So Paula, nice to have you on the show.
Dr. Paula Varela: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure being here.
Dr. John Ennis: No, it's great. And it's funny because I was kind of going through, you know, I was away from Aigora for about three years, and I was going through the list of people who have been on AigoraCast, and I couldn't believe you hadn't been on the show yet. You know, you're, I think, one of the most prominent members of the field, so it's really nice to finally have you on the show. All right, so let's talk a little bit about your background. So most people will know you and have heard of you, but it would be good if you can kind of take us through your journey, how you got interested in food science, and then how you ended up where you are today.
Dr. Paula Varela: Yeah, so I'm originally from Uruguay in South America, and that's where I obtained my degree. And in fact, quite early, I was interested in the sensory and consumer area. So I started working there at the university in Uruguay. But I thought, of course, it would be important to have a PhD, and I looked a bit around. And at the time, I was very interested in food physical properties, so texture and food structure. So then I, yeah, I got the opportunity to do my PhD in Spain. So I moved to Spain, to Valencia. I did my PhD in the Institute of Agrochemistry and Food Technology. And my PhD was in methodologies to measure crispness in food, so quite specific, and involved both, yeah, instrumental and sensory and consumer-based methods.
So since then, I stayed in Europe, and I have a number of different positions. So I worked for some years in the industry in the UK, and then back to Spain. And then I have been now in Norway as a senior researcher at Nofima, that it's also a food research institute. I've been here for 12 years now. And yeah, I have moved, obviously, between different projects. But my main focus has been methodological aspects of sensory and consumer research and worked with different aspects of health and sustainability as a driver of my research.
Dr. John Ennis: Okay. Now, you mentioned Valencia, and we were both just there, you know, at the Sensometrics conference. So I thought that was an excellent conference, but it would be nice to hear, you know, what were your thoughts on the conference? What were the things you thought were interesting or things that people should be paying more attention to?
Dr. Paula Varela: Yeah, of course, I loved to be there for various reasons. I lived in Valencia for 10 years during my PhD and postdoc and so on. So I can say it's one of my places in the world, as I like to call it. So I was very happy to be there and meet old colleagues and acquaintances from the scientific side also. And I thought the conference was really, really good. Many new new topics and old revisited topics, which I thought they were very interesting.
Also the venue was amazing. We were in the Botanical Garden in Valencia, and it was an extremely nice place to be. But scientifically, I thought it was really really good quality. And Sensometrics is a conference I like because it's small in size as compared to EuroSense or Pangborn that, of course, they are extremely good conferences but are massive. So I like that being in a conference with 100, 100 and something people, you get to speak to everyone in a way, and yeah, so you really get to interact with people. And you don't need to choose what to see, you just sit there and enjoy, relax and enjoy and listen to the different presentations, which is a plus, yeah.
Dr. John Ennis: Yes, no, I totally agree. It's, yeah, that's a good way to put it, that, you know, you go to Pangborn and you think, okay, I've got to meet this person and this person, that person. But Sensometrics, you can just let it happen and it's, uh, yeah.
Dr. Paula Varela: Yeah, and no parallel sessions, and I really like that. You just sit and enjoy, which is good.
Dr. John Ennis: Yeah, no, I totally agree. Now, Sensometrics is going through a bit of a transition right now, I think, you know, when you see, you could start to see the AI parts kind of coming showing up, and there were several talks on AI. What were the things that kind of stood out to you as like promising avenues of research and then, you know, other areas where you think it might be a bit of a dead end? I'm kind of curious.
Dr. Paula Varela: I think, yeah, definitely AI was a big part of it and different perspectives into how to use AI for for data collection and data analysis, that is quite promising. But I really like the fact that it was a very kind of reflective conference in in that sense. So was a lot of discussion in pros and cons of the use of AI at different kind of levels. And I like in the in the opening opening keynote that was Pascal Schlich, he he said something like, "Don't forget to think, but we still need to think," and I completely agree with that because that is one of the things that worries me, that AI can simplify, optimize, streamline many things, but the thinking behind still needs to be ours as researchers, and we are also the ultimate responsible for for what we do with the data, for what we do when we collect data, and papers and so on.
In fact, today I got this email from Food Quality and Preference, that I'm an editor of, but I got the email twice, as editor and as an author. And, uh, probably you got that also. And it was new, um, new rules for the use of AI in particularly in Food Quality and Preference, that is one of our main journals to publish. And I think it's very relevant, uh, to to think, like to think twice or even more than twice when you use AI for anything, for writing papers, for collecting data, for analyzing data. It's, we need to be the ultimate responsibles, and that's, yeah, that's the most important for me.
Dr. John Ennis: No, I completely agree. And and actually, you know, it's interesting, the more the more, maybe you have this experience yourself, but the more I work with AI, the more I think that AI should really be used in small bursts where you have to be there all the time. Now, at some point you can line it up and it's like a computer program and you're like, okay, we know what we're going to do and you let it run, but it takes a lot of work to get to a place where, you know, you're going to be comfortable, okay, we're on the same page, now go, and and it it it works prescrip- prescriptively and it's just going to run what you think it's going to run. But if you, yeah, in the early days of me using AI, I felt like I was getting locked out mentally. Did you have have you ever had this experience where, you know, AI does a bunch of stuff and then what happened? Nobody knows.
Dr. Paula Varela: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr. John Ennis: Yeah, so so what are some of your concerns around AI? Because, um, you know, I mean I have mine, I could talk about them all day long, but I'd like to hear your take.
Dr. Paula Varela: Yeah, I have, uh, I think it's very promising and I mean, uh, I don't mean to sound negative at all. I use AI for many things, and I think we need to use it and to learn to use it in the best possible way, so it's a great tool. But I have a a number of concerns because we are quite early in the in the process, and it advances so quickly that I think we need to be quite careful on on, yeah, the directions uh we take. So regarding let's say our science, so sensory and consumer science and sensometrics, uh one of my concerns is, um, biases.
I think there could be a number of biases in in the use of AI. So for example, some of the applications are, uh, this kind of synthetic consumers or synthetic tasters where, uh, researchers take historical data, uh they use data to train AI models, and then they uh come for with recommendations, uh etc. based on on those models. I mean, of course we have done that for for many years, not with AI but with other type of models, that's that's fine, but uh I think with the use of AI that there is so many massive amount of data behind, you may tend to forget that this data are coming from very specific populations, so meaning Western, uh white, uh highly educated many times, or at least medium to high education and socioeconomic level. Um, so that is representative of a very small part of our world and a very small part of the reality of also many markets if you are thinking about using it for with, yeah, research or marketing or commercial perspectives. So I think we need to to to be quite careful about that, and that is one of my main worries, what we obtain with AI is representative of a very slow small part or small sample of reality.
Dr. John Ennis: Mhm. Okay, well I totally agree with that. I do think, um, you know, I had Nicholas Pineau, who you probably know, on the show, and something he and I were talking about is the fact that AI can't really create information. It can help you to analyze it, whatever, but, uh, and if it does seem to be creating information, then of course you have the risk of bias. Where did the data come from that, you know, uh, you've got the bias in terms of where, you know, the populations that you're drawing from.
You also, something I've seen for example in perfume research, there's a huge bias towards marketing copy. That if you start, if you start using an AI on fragrances in a way that you think is objective, what you find is a lot of languages that it comes from magazines describing fragrances, right? And that's not how people are thinking about fragrance, you know. So even there's a kind of social bias, but then there's also just, uh, you might content bias, that the sources are very, what information was available for training? Lots of copy on websites about people trying to sell their perfume. So I do agree that I think AI should be used maybe as a kind of lubricant where you've got, but it has to be your data that you're looking at and the AI is helping you to explore it, but it really shouldn't go very far from your data, and it should be that anything you're generating, you should be able to see where it came from and find out that actually you're looking at your data, you're not looking at the the model weights because those are biased, I agree. Now, what are your thoughts when it comes to accessibility? Because I think that, um, when used properly, AI has the opportunity, for example, to open up research to, you know, populations with low literacy, for example, because of the audio, you know, is this something that you, or the fact that you can use more visual, you know, you there's more that can be done. Um, is this something that you've spent any amount of time forming an opinion on? You know, like Chris Findlay and I did a bunch of research on speech to text...
Dr. Paula Varela: No, I think you are you are right that uh it could help some populations because you you have this all this um ways of collecting data in, yeah, in alternative ways, uh like voice data, video data, um also stimuli. I think, for example, stimuli generation is quite quite promising in terms of uh images, in terms of uh videos, uh many things that you can use for for research that before they were quite costly and time-consuming. So even during a session with some consumers, you you can very quickly generate a concept based on the discussion you are having there and then. So so so it's uh could be uh very good in that sense, so give flexibility, uh also um responsiveness, so you can be much more responsive in terms of of time uh in the research, and I agree with you that it it is also promising in the sense that you can collect data in different ways that can give access to to different uh consumers or populations. But of course, first they need to reach those populations, so so if you are thinking of, for example, illiterate people in some remote areas, of course first they need to have access to uh to the tools to be able to use it, know how to to use it. So yeah, it has uh a lot of nuances, but uh, yeah, indeed very promising areas that can be used and applied.
Dr. John Ennis: Yeah, okay. Well, that matches up with how I think of it. What I think is if people use AI naively, you're going to end up with things that are mistakes and misleading. And the danger with AI is you always get an answer, right? So it seems like you're doing something, but often not only are you not accomplishing anything, you're getting misinformed. Um, yeah, so it comes down to the need for the science. That's something I saw at Sensometrics, that the role of the scientist is more important now than than it used to be, that you you have to be skillful in the use of these tools.
Dr. Paula Varela: Yeah, and I like what you say about the iteration, and this is something that I I try when I use AI for any applic- I try to iterate among, for example, AI providers, so the some are good for some things, some are good for other things, and maybe uh to do a research, literature research using uh some AI, but then when you want to generate text based on that, I can use another AI provider, and for analyzing data another AI provider. So so I think you need to iterate, um, the tools, and also this checks, uh in the different steps uh that you are really doing what you want to do. Uh, and and uh also you were saying this naive use, but also this, of course, AI helps us to be much more efficient and quick, and this is good, but then, of course, we as humans, we always resource to satisficing strategy, so it's the same as when you answer to to a consumer test, the consumer will try to make it as efficient as possible, and this might include not reading the text thoroughly, not reading instructions, not reading the questions, and and we know that. Uh, so that probably happens to us also as researchers, we want to be as effective as possible and as quick as possible, so yeah.
Dr. John Ennis: Yeah, it requires real effort. I I can relate to that, where a big wall of text comes back from the AI, and, you know, the temptation is to say, okay, sounds good. But actually, you know, you really need to pay attention and read it, you shouldn't just let it gloss over you. It takes effort to stay involved. Um, yeah, no, it's really good. Okay, well, we've talked a lot about AI, which is one of my favorite topics, so maybe we should talk about like, in your research, what are the things that you are most interested in right now, just kind of, you know, to open the floor here to things that you're working on.
Dr. Paula Varela: Yeah, so as I as I mentioned, uh um, much of my research during the last year has focused on methodological perspectives, and of course, some years ago, I was very interested in how the methods worked and how can you utilize them to collect this or that kind of data, the the part, the data analysis part, how to link it, so working together with sensometricians quite closely, um the cognitive aspect. So really interested in the methodological bit. But I think in the last years, I have been more influenced by different societal issues around us related to to health, to sustainability issues, to vulnerability of many populations. So lately, I'm more interested uh in in in how to make an impact as a sensory and consumer researcher, so how can we contribute to this societal issues and solve this societal issues from our uh perspective.
And I think we have quite a quite a unique uh perspective or lens as sensory and consumer researchers, uh because we understand quite well why people behave the way they behave towards food. I'm a food researcher, so uh I'm thinking mostly about food, why we choose the food we choose, why even if we have very clear what is healthy and what is unhealthy, we still make choices that probably are not the best for our health, the same for for the environment. So how can we support consumers in transitioning to to better diets uh from a health and sustainability perspective. Also, I'm quite interested in how different uh special populations or vulnerable population make those choices also, and I have worked very much with children, teenagers, older consumers, and so on. But I'm lately particularly interested in uh teenagers and youngsters, because I think they could be uh very important in this transition to to better diets, so how can we help them become more aware and make better choices.
So I think this also relates to the methods, because we need different methods to reach different populations and answer different objectives. So I'm still very much into the methodological aspects, but for different reasons, so now I I reflect much more on on on this aspects of of uh how we can make an impact. And in fact, I I wrote a a book chapter um recently uh for looking into children, so I've been asked to write this chapter into children methods, but I decided okay, to write the the the method chapter more focusing on the impact, so in food systems change, so how we can use certain methods to address this population to generate some impact uh in the society, particularly in food in food systems change. So yeah, so I think that's uh my my main interest at at the moment, so this transition towards healthier and and more sustainable behavior, and how our sensory and consumer lens would allow us to to have more impact.
And I think it could be many things that maybe new generations of of researchers could focus on, so to be for example more active in in policymaking, how we can influence policymakers when it comes to food policies or, yeah, health policies, and it's very rare that sensory and consumer researchers are let's say invited to to this uh forum. So so I think this is something that I'm quite interesting to to push uh toward towards and contribute to.
Dr. John Ennis: Yeah, okay, well that's great. You know, I was out of sensory for three years when I was running my startup, and one of the things I really missed was this working, I what I love working on food because I feel like, well, you know, people ask you, what is sensory science? And I always say, well, life is lived through the senses, so sensory science is the science of the experience of life, and it's especially true when it comes to food because not only does it sustain us and give us the energy for life, it's also very social. And, you know, these you have to understand the whole experience of somebody's lifetime to understand their food choices, right? Um, so yeah, I'm really fascinated by this. So, so what are some of the things you're finding, you know, with your research or research with teenagers? What are some of the kind of insights that have come out of of some of this work? How do you nudge teenagers towards healthier food choices? Um, you know, what are the tools?
Dr. Paula Varela: Yeah, that's a quite a a good question because all of us that also have teenage children, the we realize that usually explaining something to them uh doesn't work the way that we think it would work, so it needs to come from them. So I think one of the interesting parts um working with teenagers or preadolescents uh is co-creation techniques, because when you really give them a voice and understand their meaning, so I think this could be quite helpful, for example, for product developers uh in the industry, but also for researcher when you want to understand how to nudge them or how to support them, uh in their choices.
But, uh, I think also it's quite interesting, we have various projects with youngsters and pre- and adolescents and we see that they are also quite tired of being explained certain things, like for example, environmental issues, they have like they are bombarded with uh in in in school programs with that, and of course it's very important, but then it may happen that they don't want to think about that when they are choosing food. So they so so so then it's uh a very interesting population to to work with, because the the normal discourses that we use with uh with adult population, uh yeah, they don't work with with this population, so we need to come from them. So, yeah, I find it quite challenging but exciting also at the same time.
Dr. John Ennis: No, that's great. Well, my kids are six and ten, so keep me posted on the teenage years because they're coming for me.
Dr. Paula Varela: Yes, I have a 15-year-old so I can tell you everything.
Dr. John Ennis: Yeah, it's interesting. Now, what have you seen, now, you know, maybe this is not something that you personally have looked into, but I would imagine social networks make a difference too, because, you know, for example, my father did a lot of work on um youth smoking prevention. A big question in the United States is what causes children to smoke cigarettes? And it turns out it's pretty much entirely determined by whether they have friends who smoke. That if your child has friends who smoke, your child will probably smoke, and if they don't, then they won't. So is there any sort of analog on the food side when it comes to healthy eating and social networks?
Dr. Paula Varela: Defini- definitely, and in this population that we were discussing, peer pressure is uh extremely important mechanism for for their food choices, and definitely social media is is quite quite worrisome in many aspects. We have quite a a couple of papers on that related to food literacy and where uh children and teenagers and youngsters get their information from. So there is quite a lot of information, let's call it information, uh coming from from social media like TikTok videos, uh unwrapping of this and that quite unhealthy food, uh snacks, uh sweet foods, etc. So young influencers, um publicizing food in a way that is definitely not regulated in most of the countries, because social media is not regulated the same way that it is like uh traditional media.
So for example, in Europe, many countries have quite a strict regulation on uh publicity towards children when it comes to food, so it's prohibited, here in Norway is prohibited all publicity towards children. But of course, that doesn't apply to social media, so because it's almost impossible to regulate to a certain extent, because what is publicity and what is not. Um, so it's a a big a big part, but also social media can be used or social media type of interaction can be also used for research purposes and on for good, because, for example, we have worked with preadolescents using uh type of blogs or social media type of interactions where where they cook, uh post pictures, uh comment to each other, use likes, use videos, and it's a really uh good way of doing co-creation, so not necessarily you need to do it physically. So so so yeah, there is positive and negative aspects of this type of interactions or social interactions that we need to be aware of, but very important in this age group definitely.
Dr. John Ennis: Right. Now, what about parental influence? Does that tend to be positive or a do the children rebel against their parents? How does, what direction does that go?
Dr. Paula Varela: Yeah, so the that's definitely another variable that is extremely important in in children and adolescents food choice, and it it shifted or varies quite dramatically along the lifespan, so of course when you are a toddler or preschooler or schooler, parental influence it's a big, a big part or has a big weight into decisions and and and diets of of children. But when it comes to teenagehood, then they start making their own choices, and this rebellion against authority in a way could also play a role in food choices and they may start making the choices that we as parents worked very hard to to, yeah, make them have and then it can completely backfire. So so I think it's important, and there are there are a lot of papers looking into what kind of parent parenting styles or feeding practices could influence and how they influence children diets and and what happens in adolescence. So it's definitely an interesting topic.
Dr. John Ennis: Right, no, I agree with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. And my wife is a child psychologist, so hopefully we have the inside track on that. But yeah, I do think about that for sure. Well, Paula, I could talk to you all day. It's really a pleasure having you on, but we are at time. So, um, maybe just kind of final advice, something I always ask is advice for young researchers, and especially now with everything that's changing, what would be the advice you would give to somebody who might be, you know, an undergraduate, somebody maybe they're in graduate school, they're thinking about, you know, what to do with their life. What what advice would you have for a young person right now?
Dr. Paula Varela: Yeah, I think it's a quite a tricky moment for for food science, I at least in many universities in Europe is declining the the number of students choosing food food science as as a bachelor, and that's quite worrisome because of course we need to eat. This is something that AI or not AI, we would still need to eat at least for the for the for the foreseeable future. So I think it's very important to to convey the interesting interesting new topics that you can pursue as a food scientist. So for example, data science, the use of AI, how can, yeah, policymaking, so there could be very different aspects, health perspectives.
So I think many universities are still in the let's say old-fashioned, so the programs are communicated to youngsters in a very old-fashioned way, so there is still nutrition, food technology, and all these areas that maybe they don't sound so enticing or so interesting for youngsters. But it would be very interesting to communicate better the multiple avenues that that we have in our area, and and for example, data science in in food science is a very big and important part of it. So yeah, I think they they still need to get into into this and and help shaping the future of food and sensory and consumer science.
Dr. John Ennis: Right, no, I agree with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. And food will always be important, so there will always be a food industry. So, yes, yeah, I totally agree with that. All right, Paula, well, it's been a pleasure. How can people get in touch with you if they'd like to follow...
Dr. Paula Varela: Yeah, so my if you just Google me, you will find Nofima's website and my profile where you have my phone number and my email, and of course, I'm you I'm also in LinkedIn. But I have to say that I don't, I'm not in LinkedIn very often, but I'm I'm there. But so the safest way is drop me an email and I will get back to you.
Dr. John Ennis: Okay, sounds great. All right, Paula, well, thanks so much, this has been a pleasure.
Dr. Paula Varela: Thanks again for the invite, it was a pleasure.
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Aigora is a contributor to the Aigora blog, sharing insights on AI-powered sensory science and product development.