A sandwich bread is a bread for making a sandwich! 2 slices of bread with a filling like ham & mayonnaise, ketchup with either cheese or margarine and jam.

Regarding the sandwich bread shape, in Thailand, an open top bread style is not a traditional sandwich type. The traditional style can be either triangle or square shaped. It can also be whole wheat bread, or grains. Appearance is important, but the most important of all is that the texture has to be soft.

Regarding the favours, Thai people like milky and buttery flavoured products, with strong buttery smell and sweet taste!

Thaï people are not familiar with sour taste in bakery products.

The shelf life is around 7 days, so that the use of preservative is required, especially because of hot/moist weather in Thailand. Hopefully, sensory analysis will provide a direction to avoid or reduce
the use of chemical preservative.

Let me tell you a success story to illustrate this: around 3 years ago, we worked on the development of a new product; the objective was to match the sensory expectations of the Thai customers: very soft product and butter/margarine flavour. In the end, we launched the Royal bread: the product is 2 cm thick, with an open top shape, which ensures that the texture is significantly softer. Also, we designed a more buttery flavour and a sweeter taste: it was a great success and the product is still working well.

Actually, President Bakery's core product is a sliced bread. However, we try to match our products to consumers' lifestyle and give them more value-added products. Recent trend is "convenience" and
"health".

For the convenience concept, we try to improve our sliced bread which is served with large portion size, by launching more and more single portion products. This innovative product was first launched around 15 years ago. We managed to produce industrially packaged single slice bread topped with different toppings…… This new product matched Thai consumer habit! This product is still a success and we have developed new toppings. The most famous is the kaya custard one, and our latest product is corn milk flavoured. The success of this product could be due to the taste and the healthy image of corn milk.

For the health trend, we develop all kinds of whole wheat and grain breads. The most recent products are Royal Whole Wheat and Royal 12-Grains, especially for consumers concerned by their health.

In food, the key driver is being "delicious." Sensory analysis helps both determining the definition of a "delicious product" for consumers as well as integrating the parameters in the development of a good quality or premium product.

Therefore, sensory analysis is not only a quideline but also a fundamental step of the development process.

Hemaka NIYOMNAITHAM, President Bakery Sensory Team, Thailand This interview was completed with the support of Mr.Apichart Thammanomai, Managing director and Ms. Panida Prayottaweekij, Director and Senior Production Manager.