Alpha MOS CEO Pierre Sbabo: Bridging Analytical Metrics

Alpha MOS CEO Pierre Sbabo can encapsulate his business in one sentence: “With 27 years of technological advances in the industry, Alpha MOS leads sensory analytical market.”

With a clear focus on the food and beverage segment, the company has used research and development as a means to bring disruptive technologies to the arcane world of visual, taste and smell sensory testing.

Alpha MOS is based in France, with subsidiaries in China and the US, and a global distribution network. It has the unusual distinction of being the first company to introduce an electronic nose to the market. As a pioneer in the field of sensory analysis instruments, with the best part of three decades in the sector, the company offers a range of products and analytical services.

This concerns not only the capacity to assess and characterise odour profiles, but also to taste and visual aspects by colour and shape. This allows global companies to bring science to their testing, whether for product development, quality control, or to support manufacturing processes, from raw material to end-product testing.

“Having access to hi-tech but user-friendly instruments to evaluate sensory features allows leading food and beverage companies to complement and strengthen the reliability and the bandwidth of their human panels,” says Sbabo. “Historically, manufacturing plants have relied on human assessors to test odour, taste and visual aspect at the production-line level, or trained sensory panels for in-depth studies during product development.

“Adjusting to a recent shift in consumer behaviour, the market has moved to more frequent releases of new products. This puts extra pressure on human panellists, who need to be trained on a larger number of products and deliver frequent testing on very different products.”

Alpha MOS is able to bridge analytical measurements with human evaluation input. “We can process more samples, faster, with more product variations,” says Sbabo, “and give much-needed flexibility and peace-of-mind to companies.”

Pierre Sbabo’s mission at Alpha MOS has been to strengthen the company’s position as a global leader. Before joining Alpha MOS, Sbabo held leadership roles in Europe, Asia Pacific and the US. He has held positions with global corporations such as General Electric Water and Process Technologies, Pentair Filtration and Separation, NSF and — most recently — SPX Flow. There he was in charge of the EMEA food, beverage and industrial segments.