Investigating consumers' perception of apple juice as affected by novel and conventional processing technologies

This work evaluates consumers' perception of apple juice processed by high pressure processing (HPP) and pulsed electric field (PEF) compared with thermal processing. As a case study, young Chinese immigrants living in New Zealand were selected. Targeting a broad understanding of process impact, three industrially relevant apple cultivars (New Zealand Jazz, Rose and Granny Smith) were chosen. The consumer study was performed using napping with ultra-flash profiling technique (n = 38). The process impact on sensory perception seems to vary among the investigated apple cultivars. For Jazz and Granny Smith apple cultivars, PEF- and HPP-treated juices are perceived as fresh, natural, sweet and balanced flavour. For Rose apple cultivar, however PEF-processed juices appear to be perceived as fresh flavour in comparison with HPP and thermally treated juices. Moreover, thermal processing caused cooked flavour. With respect to colour, immediately after processing, HPP retains the natural apple juice colour compared with other treatments.