Taste-Driven Crop Development

By Matt McIntosh

Researchers at Ontario’s Vineland Research and Development Centre create new fruit varieties based on, and for, Canadian palates.

Developing new crop varieties is a lot of work. It can also take a long time as plant breeders try to account for a wide range of characteristics, such as disease susceptibility, tolerance for extreme temperatures or drought, and much more.

With so many factors to consider – and with limited time and resources at their disposal – how new crops should taste can, at times, be a bit of an afterthought.

At the Vineland Research and Development Centre in Ontario, however, taste profile takes a very early and important role in the development of new fruits.

Sommeliers for fruit

Travis Banks, director of plant variety development at Vineland, is part of a team of researchers involved with the development of new, tastier crops designed specifically for Canadian palates. The idea, says Banks, is to address the needs of farmers who might grow the crops – say, by making a new tomato variety more tolerant of extreme heat – while expanding the market for the crop in question by making it a preferred consumer choice.

The first step in this process is identifying what actually defines a tasty food crop. Vineland researchers begin by setting up a sensory panel – essentially a group of sommeliers, but for fruit instead of wine. This panel taste tests a selection of existing varieties of the crop in question (tomatoes and apples are Vineland’s current focus) then develops a lexicon to describe different flavours and textures.

“Potential panelists are evaluated for their ability to differentiate and describe different sensations they’re tasting. Not everybody is suitable for it. I, for example, do not have the ability to sit on a sensory panel,” says Banks.

“Panelists can assign scores to different varieties in all the categories they have established. For every different type of product, they have to sit down and develop this vocabulary.”

Gathering consumer opinions

Once the fruit sommeliers assign scores to each crop variety – apples, for example – the researchers then ask regular consumers what they think.

“We go to consumers, often in Toronto because it really captures the diversity of preferences we have across Canada. We just ask which varieties they prefer. The data is brought back and used to understand what drives consumer preferences. We can figure out a certain percentage is motivated by sweet apples, or a smaller percentage by sourness, for example,” says Banks. “Texture is often the big one. Nobody likes a mealy apple.”

“Plant breeding is all about numbers. You need to look at many, many, many plants to find ones that are exceptional performers. This allows us to incorporate taste into that at a much earlier stage and make accurate predictions on whether people will like it.”

The development of new apples and tomatoes is Vineland’s current focus, with this method of predicting taste preferences bearing significant fruit in both. Out of 12 new apple varieties developed with a taste-first strategy, for example, all 12 placed higher on consumer preference lists than existing leading and widely available apple varieties. Similar success was achieved with a higher-yielding, made-for-Ontario greenhouse tomato variety.

“It’s quite a remarkable achievement. When you come up with a new horticultural product like an apple tree, you have to evaluate it on so many criteria. How will it do against disease pressure, in different climates, for the grower, etc. What Vineland does is add how it will be preferred by consumers from the beginning. All of our processes are data-driven, bringing consumer science together with breeding and genomics. Seeing that first data from consumers, it validated our whole approach and that people are really going to enjoy eating those varieties.”