Understanding tree fruit consumer acceptance

The role of ripe soluble solids concentration (RSSC), and its relationship with ripe titratable acidity (RTA) in peach, plum, and nectarine consumer acceptance was studied as a part of our program to develop minimum quality indexes. Results of our adulterated peach juice sensory analysis indicated that liking is well related to the perception of sweetness, but titratable acidity (TA) plays an important role at low soluble solids concentration (SSC) levels (< 10%). In cases where SSC and TA were low with a high sugar-to-acid ratio (SSC:TA), perception of sweetness was low. Thus, perception of fruit juice sweetness appears to be dependent on the absolute quality attribute levels. Similar responses were found on whole fruit using "in-store" consumer acceptance tests. We found three types of relationships between consumer acceptance and tree fruit cultivars. In one group of cultivars, the degree of liking and percentage consumer acceptance rapidly increased as RSSC increased, reaching 70-75% consumer acceptance. After that point, consumer acceptance reached a plateau and became insensitive to additional increases in RSSC. The saturation points ranged from 10-12% SSC according to cultivar. In another group of cultivars, the degree of liking and percentage consumer acceptance increased as RSSC increased, reaching very high levels (90-100% consumer acceptance). In a third group of cultivars, consumer acceptance was low (70%) and related to RTA within a given RSSC range. This data corroborates our trained panel results, and suggests that cultivars should be clustered in organoleptic groups prior to proposing a unique minimum quality index based on RSSC.