Understanding consumer requirements for fruit and vegetable texture

Fruit and vegetables are important components of a healthy diet, and their textural characteristics are important in determining consumer choice. The food industry needs reliable instrumental methods to measure the textural quality of fresh produce, but also needs to ensure that the instruments measure characteristics important to consumers. A study was carried out to probe consumer understanding of textural characteristics, and to relate their perceptions to sensory profiles developed by trained panels. The results were correlated with instrumental texture measurements, and included sound emitted during fracture. Consumers had a clearer understanding of the nature of crunchiness, in contrast with crispness, and good correlations were found with the instrumental parameter, fracture toughness.