The New York Times Wirecutter team came out with a report in early September that rated Kraft Mac & Cheese Original their favorite out of the 19 boxed options tested, saying that its “buttery and silky-smooth sauce clings to each soft noodle.” If that doesn’t make your mouth water for a fresh hot bowl of gooey orange pasta, nothing will. But as writer Ciara Murray Jordan reveals in her video recap of the Wirecutter test, even a comfort food like mac and cheese becomes nauseating when binged.
Two decades ago, I ran statistically design of experiment (DOE) on Kraft Mac & Cheese Original versus their recently released Easy Mac—a more convenient, single-serve microwavable variation on their traditional stovetop, boxed brand. My goal was to see how two experimental recipes for canned mac and cheese from a Stat-Ease client (confidential) performed against King Kraft.
My wife Karen cooked up the four competing foods and presented them in random order for blind taste testing by me, my three daughters—Emily (age 21 at the time), Carrie (16), Katie (14) and three of her friends—seven in all. We rated the mac and cheese on a scale of 1 to 5—higher the better.
As you can see from the one-factor plot produced by Stat-Ease software, my client made great improvements via application of DOE on the recipe and processing of their canned product. (The numbers by some points indicate multiple results at that rating.)
Unfortunately, as you can see by the least-significant-difference bars (essentially a 95% confidence interval), this project failed to meet its goal—a canned mac and cheese just cannot best a fresh made one. As seen in the scatter plot by taster, Kraft (in one form or the other–the red and blue points) consistently came out on top.
So it goes for researchers and process developers—you win some and lose some (more of the latter). However, I did feel good seeing the original recipe (green points) rated so low by all the tasters and their far greater liking for the DOE-enhanced product.
By the way, I am now quite hungry for mac and cheese.
You too?