Premium
Consumer preferences for rockmelons in Australia
Author(s) -
Khatri Yunus,
Wei Sherrie,
Wei Fengheng
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
international journal of consumer studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.775
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1470-6431
pISSN - 1470-6423
DOI - 10.1111/j.1470-6431.2007.00649.x
Subject(s) - sweetness , flavour , organoleptic , quality (philosophy) , taste , sensory system , texture (cosmology) , mathematics , marketing , brix , food science , business , psychology , computer science , chemistry , cognitive psychology , sugar , artificial intelligence , philosophy , epistemology , image (mathematics)
On the demand side, consumer's decision choice for rockmelon is often compounded by a number of factors including quality, which is often not related to the visual characteristics observed in fruits such as bananas or mangoes. On the supply side, there is a general lack of understanding of consumer response towards rockmelon attributes in Australia and consequently, great fluctuations of demand and hence supply of the fruit. Thus, objectives of this study were to evaluate and compare analytical measures by instruments and sensory assessments by consumers based on sweetness levels (8–13 o Brix) of rockmelons. Results indicated that there was a large variation in texture, juiciness and flavour for each o Brix level. A significant correlation coefficient ( r = 0.829) was obtained between analytical and sensory measures for sweetness. High organoleptic scores for flavour were noted among the higher sweetness levels. It is recommended that due to the change in consumer acceptability, marketing of rockmelons should not be solely based on o Brix levels; other attributes such as flavour, texture and juiciness should be utilized.