Profiling culinary properties of East African highland cooking bananas to enhance hybrid selection efficiency

Abstract

In many tropical households, the East African Highland Cooking Bananas (EAHCB) referred to as “Matooke” in Uganda are a staple food. Despite its importance, the crop is faced with numerous challenges such as drought, soil fertility, pests, and diseases that threaten its production and productivity. To curb this, banana breeding was developed as one of the strategies to avert the depletion of these bananas through the development of not only pests and disease resistant cultivars but also drought tolerant and high yielding cultivars. The pressure to satisfy the growing global population is also mounting, hence the need to increase production for food security. Breeding has proven to be an approach by which food production is boosted through the development of high yielding and fast-growing varieties. Unfortunately, not so many cooking banana hybrids that have been developed and released are cultivated by farmers as most are rejected as a result of consumer perception of them. The hybrids sometimes possess culinary properties considered inferior. Consumer demands are pertinent in any product development. This review aimed to determine the key factors that influenced consumer perception and acceptability of improved cooking banana hybrids. The data sources used for this study were Google Scholar, PubMed, AgEcon, Sciencedirect.com, CABI Abstracts, and organizational websites (FAO, RTBFoods, and CGIAR). The keywords and search terms used were “East African Highland cooking bananas”, “consumer acceptability”, “sensory attributes”, “culinary properties,” “hybrid selection”, and “banana breeding”. This article presents a summary of banana production and its challenges, banana breeding and its successes, consumer perception, and acceptability of banana hybrids, and profiles the consumer traits responsible for the acceptance or rejection of new hybrids. Overall, the most important culinary properties for both preference and acceptance of new hybrids were the perceived deep yellow color of the cooked matooke, soft texture, smooth mouthfeel, “matooke” aroma, and non-astringent taste, all summed up as “tookeness”. Attributes for rejection included possession of mixed colors of the cooked matooke, absence of deep yellow color, lack of “matooke” aroma, hard placentas, and hard texture. Knowledge of product attributes that lead to the acceptance of new products is vital for breeders and this information could guide them during the development and selection of hybrids for release. Key words: Consumer acceptability, improved traits, new varieties, perception, quality, sensory attributes