---
title: "Chef research on seasoning products for restaurant kitchens | antedote"
description: "Cook-along and paired interviews with restaurant chefs in Asia, setting a sensory benchmark in chefs’ own words for a foodservice seasoning range."
url: "https://antedote.com/explore-our-work/what-chefs-need-from-a-seasoning/"
author: "antedote"
---

# Defining what professional chefs expect from a seasoning

A food company’s foodservice business was developing the next generation of its seasonings for restaurant kitchens. We set a benchmark for each in the terms chefs use, with chefs cooking and tasting the prototypes beside the products they knew.

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**Client**
Food company

**Industry**
Foodservice

**Market**
One market in Asia

**Kind of work**
Concept and product testing

**Our role**
Cook-along research with restaurant chefs to set a product benchmark

## The question

A food company’s foodservice business had prototypes for the next generation of the seasonings it sells to restaurant kitchens, mid-tier and premium alike.

Every cue, from color and aroma to salt, texture and flavor, was written in technical terms. The company needed a benchmark in chefs’ terms: what each product should look, smell and taste like, from opening the pack to the finished dish, and whether one product could serve chefs in regions that cook differently.

## Our approach

We judged each seasoning by what it did to a dish, the way a chef judges one at work.

Some chefs cooked with each product in turn, while others worked in pairs, describing a product to a partner, tasting each other’s dishes and guessing which product had made each one, a direct check of whether a difference reached the plate.

The prototypes sat beside competitors’ products and the company’s current ones throughout, so every reaction had a reference point a chef would recognize.

## What the team came away with

The product team received [a sensory benchmark for each seasoning](https://antedote.com/what-we-do/sensory-research/), written in chefs’ own language.

Each element of the benchmark came with the range between too little and too much, a read of how the prototypes compared, and design principles for the products today and in the future.

Alongside it came a vocabulary drawn from the chefs themselves, with a read across regional cooking styles. Developers could describe a cue in the words their customers use, and set any new formulation against the same benchmark before it went back into a professional kitchen.

Who we heard from

Chefs from mid-tier and premium restaurants, users of the company’s products and of its competitors’, cooking and tasting with the prototypes

## Related work

[View concept and product testing case studies](https://antedote.com/explore-our-work/?work=Concept%20and%20product%20testing#library)

- Snacks

    ### [Weighing a snack brand’s pipeline ideas against its current range](https://antedote.com/explore-our-work/snack-innovation-pipeline-prioritization/)

    A snack brand had more innovation ideas than it could develop, and needed to know what each would add to a range already on shelf.

- Foodservice

    ### [Sizing future food models for a foodservice business](https://antedote.com/explore-our-work/future-food-models-sized/)

    A foodservice company wanted a roadmap of future food models it could put money behind.

**What we do**
[Concept testing and portfolio prioritization](https://antedote.com/what-we-do/concept-testing/)

**The thinking behind this**
- [Your product is only part of what the customer is judging](https://antedote.com/thinking/what-customers-judge-in-product-research/)
- [When customers say “quality,” what should you change?](https://antedote.com/thinking/what-customers-mean-by-quality/)

## Developing new products or concepts?

We’d be happy to help you assess and improve them.

[Talk to us](https://antedote.com/talk-to-us/) · [hello@antedote.com](mailto:hello@antedote.com)

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