Potato Review

www.potatoreview.com POTATO REVIEW JULY/AUGUST 2020 33 TASTE TRIALS I ntroducing new table potatoes to the market is a challenging process. Growers, retailers and consumers all focus on di erent aspects when determining what makes an ideal potato. Seed producer Agrico already has good insight into farmers’ and retailers’ requirements. But its research team wanted a better understanding of what consumers wanted from a table potato to help them identify the best new varieties for this market segment. “We commissioned the taste panels to understand the appearance, avour and texture that consumers prefer,” said Archie Gibson, Executive Director of Agrico. “ ere is conventional wisdom about what consumers want but we wanted to be more scienti c in our approach. What’s more, eating habits and consumer tastes change so we wanted up to date information about what they like.” Agrico worked with Abertay University and QueenMargaret University to organise two sets of sensory evaluation testing panels. Each testing panel had more than 100 participants and assessed several potato varieties for appearance, avour, texture and overall acceptability. A matter of taste Sensory evaluation highlights consumers’ taste in new varieties Additional information was collected through a survey of all participants in the testing panels. “ ere was quite a di erence between the make-up of the two panels,” said Archie. “At Queen Margaret University, there was an even spread of ages and nearly three quarters of participants were women. At Abertay, we had a much younger cohort with over half of participants aged 20–39 and only slightly more women than men.” According to Archie, the results from this young cohort are particularly important because fresh potato consumption is lower among younger age groups (AHDB GB Potatoes 2016-17). He is optimistic that this type of research can help identify varieties that can increase consumption and provide a stable market for UK farmers. ➜ “There is conventional wisdom about what consumers want but we wanted to be more scientific.” Archie Gibson, Executive Director of Agrico Steven Muir Archie Gibson