Tomato Fruit Flavour- An Interlaboratory Taste Panel Study

Despite the range of tests and procedures available for sensory evaluation (1-3) it is often difficult to decide on the best procedure to use for a given application. The purpose of the present study ( at four laboratories) was to see if tasters could distinguish between two tomato fruit samples- which had different composition values- when both were tasted as a pair, or as single samples on separate days. These two procedures were compared in view of the findings of other workers; for example the single presentation design more closely stimulates normal consumer assessment than comparative evaluation (1-6). In addition, in paired comparison testing a mediocre sample may be considered good when presented alongside a poor quality sample; the same sample may be considered unacceptable when presented alongside a good quality sample (7,8). This study was part on an on-going agro-food programme (1979-83) of the Standing Committee for Agricultural Research of the Commission of the European Communities (9) on the quality of intensively produced tomatoes, apples and poultry.