Statistical treatment of free sorting data by means of correspondence and cluster analyses

•New strategies for the analysis of free sorting data are discussed.•Correspondence and cluster analyses are applied on the co-occurrence matrices.•The relationships among the stimuli on the one hand and among the subjects on the other hand are investigated.•The stimuli are partitioned into homogeneous clusters.•The subjects are segmented into homogeneous groups.•The different methods of analyses complement each other and present a global coherence. Several statistical procedures have been proposed for the analysis of the data from a free sorting task. A straightforward strategy of analysis based on correspondence analysis and cluster analysis performed on the co-occurrence matrix is proposed herein. More specifically, two situations are considered depending on whether the aim is to depict the relationships among the stimuli or to investigate the agreement among the subjects. The approach of analysis is illustrated on the basis of free sorting data characterizing chocolate products.