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Texture
Science programme: Sensory & consumer science
Texture has a critical influence on consumers’ preferences for food, with poor texture often being the reason consumers reject particular products.
At HortResearch, our studies mainly focus on fruit and include:
- Identifying sensory texture attributes that influence consumer preference
- Understanding the biological basis of texture in fruit, particularly cell and tissue structures, and how they break down during chewing
- Establishing instrumental methods that are highly correlated with sensory texture and can be used to predict consumer preferences.
In recent studies we have identified that juiciness is the primary texture attribute that defines most fruit, and that the sensation of juiciness changes in intensity during mastication. However, for fruit such as apples, mechanical properties that confer crispness or crunchiness are equally important. We have examined the relationships between chewing sounds and crispness, and developed electrical impedance as a tool for identifying when cells break open and release juice during mechanical testing.
In other projects we consider how texture measurements are used for quality control by the fruit industry. We have monitored softening of fruit during development on the tree to help in prediction of harvest dates. Increasingly, non-destructive texture measurements are forming the basis of sorting and grading for quality during packing. We are examining how well these new technologies provide consumers with better quality fruit.
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