Understanding Blood versus Blond Orange Consumption: A Cross-Cultural Study in Four Countries
Understanding consumer perceptions and attitudes to specific fruit is key information for not only increasing fruit consumption, but also for marketing reasons. It may also give clues to breeders to set quality objectives. This study explores different aspects that help to explain blood vs. blond orange consumption: availability and consumption habit, satisfaction attributes, facilitators and consumption barriers, consumption contexts, expectations and purchase intention. The study was conducted in China, Mexico, Spain and Italy, where citrus fruit consumers were invited to respond an online questionnaire. Our results revealed Italy as the country with the highest availability and consumpti…
Effect of Pulp Pigmentation Intensity on Consumer Acceptance of New Blood Mandarins: A Cross-Cultural Study in Spain and Italy
One of the current objectives of different citrus breeding programmes is obtaining new pigmented mandarins. This study investigates to what extent consumer preferences, expectations and purchase intention are affected by the appearance of new mandarins, specifically pulp pigmentation intensity. Four hundred consumers from both Italy and Spain (800 in all) participated in the study. In each country, half were informed about the healthy properties of the anthocyanins responsible for red pulp colouration, while the other half were not. Italians more readily accepted new mandarin varieties than Spaniards, which was linked to them being more familiar with blood oranges. In Italy, both slight- an…
Discrimination of astringent and deastringed hard ‘Rojo Brillante’ persimmon fruit using a sensory threshold by means of hyperspectral imaging
[EN] Persimmon fruit cv. 'Rojo Brillante' is an astringent cultivar due to its content of soluble tannins, which are insolubilised during the ripening of the fruit. Traditionally, the consumption of this cultivar has only been possible when the fruit is overripe and the texture is soft. Postharvest treatments based on exposing fruits to high CO2 concentrations allow astringency removal while preserving high flesh firmness. However, the effectiveness of this treatment is controlled by means of slow destructive methods. The aim of this work is to study the application of hyperspectral imaging in the spectral range 450-1040 nm to discriminate astringent (A) and deastringed (DA) fruits non-dest…