Central Location Testing in South Florida

Central location testing is a product evaluation method in which recruited consumers come to a controlled facility to taste, smell, or evaluate products under standardized conditions. Unlike home use tests (HUT), where products are taken home, CLT controls the serving environment: temperature, portion size, serving order, timing between samples, and evaluator neutrality. This standardization produces more reliable comparisons between products, particularly when small sensory differences matter. CLT is the standard method for blind taste tests, competitive benchmarking studies, and product reformulation validation.

CLT is preferable when you need to control serving conditions, when you are testing multiple products in a single session, when bias from home preparation or storage would distort results, or when you need respondents to evaluate products immediately after serving. Home use tests are better when naturalistic usage over multiple days matters, when the product requires prolonged exposure (for example, a skincare product or a meal kit), or when recruiting consumers to a facility is not feasible for your target segment. For most competitive benchmarking and reformulation studies, CLT is the correct design.

HRG's Broward County CLT facility accommodates simultaneous individual testing stations designed for controlled product evaluation. Each station is isolated to prevent respondents from seeing or influencing each other's evaluations. For large-scale studies requiring simultaneous high-volume throughput, HRG can arrange sequential waves across a single day or across multiple days at the facility, or can extend to partner facilities in Miami-Dade or Palm Beach for multi-site designs.

Participants arrive in scheduled waves. On arrival, they complete a brief eligibility confirmation and any required consent forms. They are seated at individual evaluation stations and given standardized instructions by a bilingual fieldworker. Products are served in randomized order using three-digit blind codes. Between samples, participants rinse with water and observe a timed rest interval of 60 to 90 seconds. After evaluating all products, participants complete a demographic questionnaire and are thanked and debriefed. Each wave typically takes 45 to 75 minutes depending on the number of products and questionnaire length.

Products that require prolonged use to evaluate, such as skincare, hair care, or laundry detergents, are not suitable for CLT. Products requiring complex home preparation that cannot be replicated in a facility may also be better suited to a home use test. Products with temperature or freshness requirements that cannot be maintained during transportation from the client to the facility require additional logistics planning but are generally manageable for CLT with appropriate cold-chain arrangements.

Yes. All fieldwork at HRG's Broward County facility is conducted by bilingual English and Spanish field staff as standard. For studies targeting the Haitian-American community in Broward and northern Miami-Dade, Haitian Creole-speaking fieldworkers are available. Questionnaires are prepared and administered in the respondent's preferred language. For multi-lingual studies, sessions are typically wave-segmented by language group to avoid inter-group contamination.