The Experimental Kitchen

The Idea behind It

Our kitchen experiments are usually conducted by volunteers - people who normally work in their own kitchens at home, and have received no special training prior to the experiments. This way the studies are more realistic. The main area of our investigation is the effect of various products and/or hygiene measures on the degree of cross-contamination between food, hands and kitchen surfaces.

Our Experimental Kitchen as Research Lab

The kitchen is, without a doubt, the most important and busiest room in a Western European home. Because so many of our cleaning products are used in kitchens, and because our product developers need to have a scientific understanding of our consumers' habits and practices, P&G invested in an "experimental kitchen" at a research institute, Institut Pasteur in Paris, France.

This kitchen has been used for this purpose since January 2000, and we have conducted nearly 100 experiments to date. The experimental kitchen is really a laboratory, where the conditions that reflect "typical" consumer habits are created, along with the ability to control a number of variables. These field studies allow the generation of scientific, reproducible data under realistic conditions.

The kitchen is the primary site for use of cleaning products, including antibacterial cleaners.
The kitchen is where food-borne diseases are most likely to originate.