Novel methodologies for the texture analysis of fruit and vegetables

After visual appearance, texture is the most relevant factor that determines fruit and vegetables quality for the fresh market. Texture contributes to consumer acceptance, resistance to bruising during harvesting and transportation, and shelf-life. Therefore, texture should be a priority on fruit quality research. Sensory evaluation and rheological analysis have been the classical approaches used to study texture of foods. However, the relevance of texture on describing a fruit flesh firmness has normally been underestimated. Deeper studies of fruit and vegetables texture would help to discover and to annotate new phenotypic attributes. These data will help to reduce the imbalance between the scarce data obtained through traditional phenotyping and the huge amount of data obtained via high output genotyping platforms. 
During this seminar we will explore results of studies concerning sensory and texture evaluation on fruit and vegetables, looking to reach a better comprehension of the state of the art of the appliable destructive and non-destructive methodologies  appliable for texture assessment.