Consumer liking for kiwifruit flavour: A meta-analysis of five studies on fruit quality

Consumer liking for ‘Hayward’, ‘Hort16A’ and organic kiwifruit harvested with differing dry matter contents (DM) has been studied in five separate studies over a seven-year period. The results were combined with the aim of generating a larger dataset for exploring the relationship between DM, which is measured at harvest and can be used to predict the sugar content of ripe kiwifruit (rSSC), and consumer liking of kiwifruit flavour. The dataset also allowed the demographic structure of consumer segments with markedly different flavour preferences to be characterised. The range and specifications of different DM categories varied across studies. For this reason, a quadratic regression analysis was used to model the overall liking responses of individual consumers. The re-analysis demonstrated that seasonal differences and methodological variations need to be taken into account when interpreting research on flavour of fresh fruit. Participants who were female, older and more frequent consumers of kiwifruit were more likely to provide consistent responses. Overall the study demonstrated that the majority of consumers responded positively to increasing DM.