Sensory and Consumer Science Research Group, Postharvest Technology Center, Valencian Institute for Agricultural Research (IVIA), Moncada, Spain.
Departamento de Biotecnología, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Unidad Iztapalapa, Ciudad de México, Mexico.
J Sci Food Agric. 2021 Dec;101(15):6586-6594. doi: 10.1002/jsfa.11302. Epub 2021 May 22.
Under certain climate conditions, citrus fruit may reach optimum internal maturity while the rind is still green. It is therefore customary to enhance skin colour changes by submitting early citrus varieties to ethylene degreening treatment, which implies a cost and may result in external disorders. In this study, the effect on consumer expectations (sensory and hedonic) of providing them with information about the internal maturity of non-degreened mandarins (greenish-coloured rind) was evaluated.
Mandarins with three different external colour indices (CI), CI = -6, CI = +1 and CI = +5, and three ways of conveying information, were investigated: (i) No information (NoInfo), (ii) The text 'Mandarins ready to eat' (Text) and (iii) Text + Visualisation of mandarin flesh (orange-coloured in all cases) (Text+Flesh). Consumer expected liking, purchase intention and sensory expectations were markedly affected after receiving the different information types. The greatest effect was detected when Text+Flesh information was provided. Rind mandarin colour was also a determinant factor of how consumer expectations were modified by the received information. Moreover, our results revealed some differences among Spanish and Mexican consumers, since maturity information had a stronger effect on hedonic expectations of Mexican consumers.
When mandarins reach CI = +5 (pale orange-coloured rind with small areas still green), letting consumers know that mandarins are ready to eat by means of Text+Flesh information may be a non-cost strategy to avoid degreening treatment or to shorten its length. © 2021 Society of Chemical Industry.
在某些气候条件下，柑橘果实可能在果皮仍为绿色时达到最佳内部成熟度。因此，通常采用乙烯脱绿处理来促进果皮颜色变化，这意味着会产生成本，并且可能导致外部紊乱。在这项研究中，评估了为非脱绿蜜柑（果皮呈淡绿色）提供内部成熟度信息对消费者期望（感官和喜好）的影响。
研究了三种不同外部颜色指数（CI）的蜜柑，CI = -6、CI = +1 和 CI = +5，以及三种信息传达方式：（i）无信息（NoInfo），（ii）“蜜柑可食用”文字信息（Text）和（iii）文字信息+蜜柑果肉可视化（所有情况下果肉均呈橙色）（Text+Flesh）。消费者在收到不同信息类型后，对预期喜好、购买意愿和感官期望有明显的影响。当提供 Text+Flesh 信息时，效果最大。果皮蜜柑颜色也是消费者期望受所接收信息改变的决定因素。此外，我们的结果表明西班牙和墨西哥消费者之间存在一些差异，因为成熟度信息对墨西哥消费者的喜好期望有更强的影响。
当蜜柑的 CI 达到+5（果皮呈淡橙色，仍有小面积绿色）时，通过 Text+Flesh 信息让消费者知道蜜柑可以食用可能是一种避免脱绿处理或缩短其处理时间的非成本策略。© 2021 英国化学学会。
