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Research Project: New Sustainable Processing Technologies to Produce Healthy, Value-Added Foods from Specialty Crops

Location: Healthy Processed Foods Research

Title: Texture of hot-air-dried persimmon (diospyros kaki) chips: instrumental, sensory, and consumer input for product development

Author
item Milczarek, Rebecca
item Woods, Rachelle
item LAFOND, SEAN - University Of California, Davis
item Smith, Jenny
item Sedej, Ivana
item Olsen, Carl
item Vilches, Ana
item Breksa, Andrew
item Preece, John

Submitted to: Foods
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/6/2020
Publication Date: 10/10/2020
Citation: Milczarek, R.R., Woods, R., Lafond, S.I., Smith, J.L., Sedej, I., Olsen, C.W., Vilches, A.M., Breksa III, A.P., Preece, J.E. 2020. Texture of hot-air-dried persimmon (diospyros kaki) chips: instrumental, sensory, and consumer input for product development. Foods. 9(10). Article 1434. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods9101434.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/foods9101434

Interpretive Summary: This work explored the instrumental and sensory texture attributes of persimmon chips prepared by hot air-drying and connected the measured attributes with consumer acceptance. Instrumental measurements generally require less time and fewer resources than conducting a sensory panel, so the first aim of this work was to determine if instrumental texture measurements could predict eight (8) sensory texture attributes. We found that 7 of the 8 sensory attributes could be modeled in a fair-to-good fashion. Our results suggest that for persimmon chips and similar dried-fruit products, instrumental methods may be used in place of sensory panels and thereby reduce the time necessary to characterize texture. In addition, mathematical modeling identified the texture attributes most desired by consumers for this product; the preference is for a moist, smooth texture. Identification of persimmon cultivars that possess the desirable texture traits can also be done based on this work, and astringency type - in and of itself - should not be used as an attribute for judging a persimmon cultivar’s suitability for hot air-drying.

Technical Abstract: Persimmon (Diospyros kaki) is an underutilized tree fruit. Previous studies have shown the feasibility of making a hot-air-dried, chip-style product from persimmon. However, the texture of this type of product has not been explored or connected to consumer preference. Thus, for dried samples representing 37 cultivars, this study aimed to (1) predict trained sensory panel texture attributes from instrumental measurements, (2) predict consumer liking from instrumental measurements and sensory texture attributes, and (3) elucidate whether astringency type affects dried product texture. Partial least-squares regression models of fair-to-good quality predicted all measured sensory texture attributes (except Tooth Packing) from instrumental measurements. Modeling also identified that consumer preference is for a moist, smooth texture. Lastly, while astringency type has significant (p < 0.05) effects on several individual texture attributes, astringency type should not be used a priori to screen-in or -out persimmon cultivars for processing into a hot-air-dried product.