PEOPLE from the north Cotswolds and Evesham are being invited to sign up for a 1,000 food tasting panel at a Chipping Campden based food research centre. Reporter Mark Jessop went along to find out if there is such a thing as a free lunch....

EATING raspberry trifle at 3pm in the afternoon might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it is the sort of thing members of a new consumer taste testing panel being set up in the north Cotswolds could find themselves doing.

Not that you have the chance to finish the whole thing - even if you wanted to - because this is serious research on behalf of the food industry and they are keen to know the public think about their products.

It is for that reason I found myself sat in a booth at the headquarters of the Campden and Chorleywood Food Research Association's (CCFRA) , the world's largest membership-based food research association, just outside Chipping Campden.

I was there to give my opinions via a simple computer programme on the relative merits or otherwise of two individual trifles.

Fortunately for my self-esteem, my taste buds were able to detect which of the trifles - both of which are sold as own-brand products in nationally renowned stores - was the premium brand and which was the "value" brand. Not that that was the point of the exercise - I was just being asked if I liked them or not.

As consumer food technologist Jill Goode rightly points out it is all a matter of taste - literally.

Jill is one of the people on hand to guide food tasters through the taste tests they are being asked to undergo.

And it's not just trifles the CCFRA wants the public's views on. There are cereals, energy bars, ready meals, snacks, drinks, in fact anything that the food and drink industry wants consumer's opinions on.

Previously the CCFRA has set up its food tasting panels on an ad hoc basis but Peter Burgess, manager of the Consumer Markets Insights team at Campden, wants to establish a more formal database of consumers who are prepared to spare some time to help with its work.

"This is the first time we have used this approach of building a database or panel of consumers.

"We are looking for people from all walks of life, from age 18 upwards. We will be inviting them to come along and take part in a range of market research studies, possibly joining focus groups on new product ideas," says Peter.

"The more people we have the better it enables us to meet our clients' needs more fully," he adds.

Peter says the work of panellists was highly valued by food producers anxious to test new recipes before going into production.

"We need to analyse people's response to things like colour, taste, texture, smell or shape, perhaps concepts new to the UK market or products redesigned following earlier research," he says.

Those that do sign up, and 350 have done so up to now, will not find themselves out of pocket.

A range of incentives for taking part in research have been set up, from a £5 shopping voucher or cash for completing an online questionnaire to £50 for participating in a more in-depth focus group.

Tasting sessions can take place during the day, evenings and weekends, and not all of them take place at the CCFRA's Campden HQ, as they will go out to towns such as Evesham and Stratford, where they hire a hall in which to conduct research.

Anyone interested in becoming a food tasting panellists should go to www.campden.co.uk/consumerpanel/welcome.htm where they will find a short questionnaire to fill in.

According to Peter, the food and drink industry launched a staggering 3,000 new products onto the UK market last year.

"Everybody's got a view about food and drink and it's important to capture people's opinion about these new products.

"The people on our panel can influence the way Britain is going to eat in the future."