An AHP-TOPSIS based approach for food selection: a case study of chorizo varieties in Santa Marta, Colombia

This paper presents a framework based on AHP-TOPSIS for multicriteria decision-making in the selection of a food product, considering aspects related to sensory profiles, proximal chemical content and economic value in the markets. For the sensory profile, criteria such as appearance, color, smell, texture, flavor, salt level and greasiness were considered. For the evaluation of the proximal chemical content, measurements of moisture, proteins, lipids, ashes and carbohydrates were performed in the food laboratories of the Universidad del Magdalena. The measurements of the sensory and organoleptic aspects were performed with the participation of 5 experts, who issued their judgment for each of the alternatives considered in the case study of Santa Marta: chorizos made from pork, veal, chicken and fish. The data that combine the judgments of the experts, the sale price and the proximal chemical contents were processed with the AHP method and the alternatives with the TOPSIS method. The results show that the chorizos made with pork reached an R (relative proximity to the ideal solution) value slightly higher than those made with fish (0.787 versus 0.751); while those made with veal and chicken obtained much lower values (0.266 and 0.197 respectively). This way, a framework for a multicriteria selection process of food products was obtained, based on two discrete tools widely used in the scientific literature.