Mealiness in Apples: Towards a Multilingual Consumer Vocabulary

Abstract

Three commercial varieties of dessert apples known to be susceptible to varying degrees of mealiness were evaluated by descriptive sensory profiling. In parallel, consumer testing using the repertory grid technique was conducted with consumers representing 5 different European countries. Generalized Procrustes Analysis of the repertory grid data suggested a cross-cultural consensus with respect to consumer perception of mealiness. In particular, mealiness was associated with the texture of Cox apples. Curved box-plots, an innovative extension of ordinary box-plots, was used to explore the consumers' use of descriptive attributes. This indicated that although consumers perceived mealiness similarly, they described their perceptions differently.

Cultural differences in food description and preference: Contrasting Vietnamese and French panellists on soy yogurts

“…Moreover, the picture emerging from these few studies is far from being clear. However one main feature can be reported: whereas cross-cultural perceptual difference have been found in flavour description (Le Mée, 2006;Pages et al, 2007), no such difference was observed in the perception of appearance, basic taste and texture (Andani, Jaeger, Wakeling, & MacFie, 2001;Blancher et al, 2007;Laing et al, 1993Laing et al, , 1994Prescott et al, 1997Prescott et al, , 1998. Le Mée (2006) reported cross-cultural perceptual differences between a French and a Chinese panel in their description of biscuits.…”

Electromyography of the masticatory muscles can detect variation in the mechanical and sensory properties of apples

“…Of all the sensory terms, mealiness is arguably of the greatest interest, since it is strongly negatively correlated with acceptability (Andani, Jaeger, Wakeling, & MacFie, 2001;Daillant-Spinnler et al, 1996;Jaeger, Wakeling, & MacFie, 1998). However, it is also relatively intractable in terms of objective measurement (Andani et al, 1999).…”

Highlight of important product characteristics for consumers. Comparison of three sensory descriptive methods performed by consumers

“…Thomson and McEwan (1988) early discussed the possibilities of a method like the Repertory Grid to investigate consumer perceptions of foods. Some authors have compared the results of conventional sensory profile performed with trained panellists with those obtained using such descriptive methods with consumers (Repertory Grid (Andani et al, 2001) or Projective Mapping (Barcenas et al, 2004;Risvik et al, 1997)). However, so far little has been done to compare different descriptive methods conducted with consumers in terms of efficiency and relevance.…”

“…The Repertory Grid Method (RG) is another method that is used in sensory consumer science with consumers in order to collect relevant and understandable information about what consumers perceive (Andani, Jaeger, Wakeling, & Macfie, 2001;Russel & Cox, 2004;Thomson & McEwan, 1988). This method is based on Kelly's clinical psychological Theory of Personal Constructs (Kelly, 1955).…”