Sustainable Fruit Consumption: The Influence of Color, Shape and Damage on Consumer Sensory Perception and Liking of Different Apples

Anne Normann,Karin Wendin,Magnus Röding

doi:10.3390/su11174626

Abstract

Sustainable food production and consumption are currently key issues. About one third of food produced for human consumption is wasted. In developed countries, consumers are responsible for the largest amount of food waste throughout the supply chain. The unwillingness to purchase and consume suboptimal food products is an important cause of food waste, however, the reasons behind this are still insufficiently studied. Our research addresses the question of how combinations of color, shape and damage of apples influence consumer liking and perceived sensory attributes. In a laboratory study based on factorial design of visual appearance (color, shape and damage varied from optimal to suboptimal) a total of 130 consumers evaluated sensory perception of flavor and texture attributes in apple samples. Liking was also evaluated. The results showed a significant difference in liking between an optimal apple and all apple categories with at least two out of three suboptimal properties. Further, it was a clear trend that the optimal apple was perceived as sweeter, crispier, less bitter, and less earthy than all the other apples by the participating consumers, however, the results were not statistically significant. A suboptimal appearance, therefore, had a negative effect on both perception and liking.

Highlights

Sustainable food production and consumption are currently key issues of today
Two slices of randomly selected and peeled apples were served to the participating consumers while they were looking at picture collages of apples, where each collage represented a specific combination of the visual three-dimensional aspects of color, shape and damage, i.e., collages that differed in suboptimality
The results showed that there were no significant differences between any of the eight apple categories regarding how the consumers perceived the sensory attributes

Summary

Introduction

Sustainable food production and consumption are currently key issues of today. Food waste reduction initiatives and programs have received increased attention in both science and society during the past decade, and research has given more attention in recent years to wastage in production [1]. There are three main categories of factors that consumers find relevant concerning the visual appearance of apples: (1) Color, (2) shape and (3) physical form/damage [12,13,14]. These characteristics affect the purchase intentions of consumers, but only if they deviate significantly from the norm and may be perceived as suboptimal [10,14]. These three main categories are of importance when studying the perception of optimal and suboptimal apples. The overall goal is to increase the awareness of consumers’ perceptions of suboptimality

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Conclusion