Optimal and acceptable levels of sweetness, sourness, firmness, mealiness and banana aroma in dessert banana (Musa sp.)

Acceptability criteria in dessert banana were investigated to enable sensory qualities to be taken into account earlier in the assessment of new banana hybrids in a selection scheme. Twelve banana cultivars were characterized by sensory profiling and physical-chemical analyses at a defined eating stage. The 'right' levels of sourness, sweetness, firmness, mealiness, and banana aroma were evaluated by 214 consumers on the 'Just-About-Right' scale. Optimal acceptance of a banana means at the most 20% of consumers judged the banana to be e.g. 'too …' or 'not … enough'. The ideal banana received scores ranging between 6.1 and 6.7 for sweetness, between 2.8 and 3.3 for sourness, above 6.3 for banana aroma, between 3.7 and 4.7 for firmness and between 1.0 and 1.4 for mealiness on a discrete 0-9 scale, by titratable acidity of 5.5 meq 100 g−1, or a pH of 4.9, and a pulp puncture force between 1.9 and 2.4 N. Acceptability thresholds were calculated when a maximum of 33% of consumers judged bananas to be e.g. 'too …' or 'not … enough'. Screening new hybrids revealed the advantage of using an acceptability threshold of 33% of unsatisfied consumers as the first step, since after a hybrid has passed the acceptability threshold, crop management can be directed towards being as close as possible to the characteristics of the ideal banana.