# Food and beverage taste testing in real kitchens.

Put real food and drink in real kitchens. Sensory, packaging, and claims feedback — decision-ready while the formula is still on the bench.

## Top-box appeal

80%▲ 18 pts  
vs control  
0control 62100

### Driver scores

- Flavour: 92
- Crunch: 74
- Aftertaste: 61

### Highlight AI Finding

Flavour signal is your biggest growth lever.  
+22 pts top-box lift  
0.71 repeat corr.

#### Presentation

PDF

### Purchase intent

6 concepts · 300 testers 1 / 8

## Food & beverage testing methods

Start with the buyer overview for each method, then run studies in-home with Highlight logistics.

- [Sensory & taste testing](/content/use-case/sensory-testing/index.html)
- [Claims testing & substantiation](/content/use-case/claims-testing/index.html)
- [Package testing](/content/use-case/package-testing/index.html)
- [How much does IHUT cost?](/content/blog/ihut-clt-pricing-guide/index.html)

## Why teams choose Highlight

### Turnkey, targeted, and fast

Three reasons food and beverage teams stop waiting on insight.

- End to end, off your plate  
  We handle recruitment, procurement, and fulfillment — including cold chain. You manage everything from setup to results in one dashboard.
- Engaged tasters, precise targeting  
  60k+ Highlighters with a 90% completion rate and 20-word average open-ends. Zero in on category buyers, dietary needs, or heavy users.
- Data in under a week  
  Go from shipment to live results in days and cut time-to-insight by up to 50% — fast enough to fix the formula before the line runs.

## Case study · King’s Hawaiian

### How King’s Hawaiian accelerated product development with rapid taste testing

- 94% completion across 180 units tested nationwide — four days from shipment to live data
- Decision-ready consumer insight in under two weeks, pre-launch
- Feedback spanning sensory optimization, brand-product fit, and pricing
- Lower research cost and faster line-extension calls

#### [Read the case study](/content/blog/prototype-testing-kings-hawaiian/index.html)

### Questions

## Common food & beverage questions

- **What can you test for food and beverage products?**  
  Highlight runs sensory evaluation, claims testing, package testing, blind protocols, and shelf-life reads for food and beverage brands — all with real category buyers, including full cold-chain handling for frozen and refrigerated SKUs.
- **How do you handle cold-chain shipping for food and beverage testing?**  
  Highlight’s proprietary logistics operation manages recruitment, warehousing, and fulfillment end to end, including cold-chain handling for frozen and refrigerated products — your team never touches a carrier or a dry-ice order.
- **How fast can you get food and beverage taste-test results back?**  
  Most Highlight studies move from shipment to live results in days, not weeks — fast enough to catch a formula issue before the production line runs, cutting time-to-insight by up to 50%.
- **Can you target a specific kind of eater or drinker for food and beverage testing?**  
  Yes. Highlight’s Highlighter Community is screened across 43+ demographic, behavioral, and attitudinal attributes, with 90%+ response rates and targeting down to a 2% incidence rate — so you can zero in on category buyers, dietary needs, or heavy users.
- **Do you support claims substantiation for food and beverage labels?**  
  Yes — Highlight’s claims testing runs alongside sensory and package testing on the same platform, so you can validate label language with the same consumers who are judging taste and packaging.

## The latest from Highlight

- [Insights report \ 
  The better-for-you eater in 2026 \ 
  What shoppers now expect from taste, label, and price — and where the trade-offs really sit. \ 
  Download](/content/expertise/better-for-you/index.html)
- [Case study \ 
  A snack brand reformulates without losing fans \ 
  How a sensory test caught the texture change consumers wouldn’t forgive. \ 
  Read](/content/blog/reformulating-for-regulations-example/index.html)
- [On-demand webinar \ 
  Spindrift on high-impact innovation \ 
  Building a better-for-you brand people come back for, straight from the team that did it. \ 
  Watch](/content/highlight-spark-spindrift-innovation/index.html)