The Fundamentals of Customer-Centered Design of Food Products A Multisensory Strategy Integrating Emerging Techniques

Luis H. Reyes is an Associate Professor at Universidad de Los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia) and Director of the Product and Process Design Group. Luis is a chemical engineer (Universidad Industrial de Santander, Colombia) with a PhD. in Chemical Engineering from Texas A&M University (College Station, TX, USA). His research interest focuses on applying biological engineering to design and develop bioprocesses and bioproducts using various tools borrowed from the natural sciences, such as molecular and synthetic biology, reverse engineering of microorganisms, laboratory adaptive evolution, and microbiology. He teams with an interdisciplinary research group in the biomedical engineering area to develop bionanoconjugated vehicles to transport and deliver biological molecules with therapeutic potential, including gene and enzyme replacement therapies. He also works in the discovery and production of peptides with applications in the medical, food, and petrochemical industries. In food engineering, Luis studies the sensory design of beer and the protein replacement of dairy products.

Dr. Andrea Sánchez-Camargo is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemical and Food Engineering, Universidad de Los Andes, Colombia. She earned her B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from the National University of Colombia, an M.Sc. in Food Engineering from the University of Campinas (Brazil), and a Ph.D. in Biology and Food Science from the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain). Her research focuses on integrating green processes to extract bioactive compounds from agro-industrial products and by-products.

Dr. Sánchez Camargo contributes to the creation of functional foods and sustainable design approaches in food product development. She has participated in nine national and international R&D projects and has co-authored 36 publications and six book chapters. Her expertise in eco-friendly ingredient development and sustainable processing methods offers valuable insights for professionals aiming to meet contemporary consumer demands for health and sustainability.

Dr. Felipe Reinoso-Carvalho is an Associate Professor and Head of the Marketing Unit at the School of Management, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia. With a Ph.D. focused on sensory marketing and multisensory experience design, his research explores how sensory stimuli influence consumer behavior in the food and beverage industry. Dr. Reinoso-Carvalho provides insights into aligning product attributes with consumer sensory expectations.

He frequently collaborates with both public and private sectors through consultancy projects, helping organizations enhance their customer experience strategies. His research has been featured in international media outlets such as The Guardian, The Washington Post, and BBC Focus, highlighting its global impact. Dr. Reinoso- Carvalho also serves as a Visiting Scholar at IAE Angers, France, contributing to international academic discourse on sensory marketing and consumer behavior.

Juan Carlos Cruz obtained his undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from the National University of Colombia (2002) and later his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Kansas State University (KSU) (2010) for his work on a new platform for enzyme immobilization to address biocatalysis challenges in non-aqueous media. Cruz has experience as Head of New Product Development in a chemical company, where he developed several nanotechnological applications to improve critical attributes of plastics according to the requirements and standards of new market niches. In 2016, he joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Universidad de Los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia). Cruz has more than fifteen years of working in the fields of industrial and medical biotechnology and, in particular, in the development of nanobiocatalysts, the fundamental understanding of protein-protein, protein-surface, and protein-lipid interactions, the development of new nanoparticulate vehicles for the release and guidance of pharmacological molecules and the search for unique peptides with membrane activity.