Relationships between objective measurements and sensory attributes of quality of eight tomato cultivars

Sensory profile of eight different tomato cultivars were evaluated in a preliminary study. The following chemical-physical parameters were determined on the same samples in this work: colour indices, Instron modulus of deformability, sugar content (glucose and fructose), pH, acidity and dry matter. These parameters can be used by agronomists and geneticists to develop new cultivars showing specific characteristics to meet consumer requirements for both fresh and processed tomato. The consumer test, carried out on the same samples, showed that the determining parameters for consumer preference arc associated with colour and texture. Multivariate statistical techniques (Partial Least Square Analysis) were then applied to identify possible relationships between sensory properties and instrumental measurements important to tomato quality. A good correlation was found both between instrumental colour indices and visual descriptors and between the modulus of deformability and sensory texture. As a result, knowledge of the relationships between instrumental measurements and sensory perception can be applied to improve quality control and consumer acceptance.