Impact of appearance on degree of liking and eating quality expectations of selected apple cultivars

Summary This study investigated the effect of taste expectations based on cultivar recognition on the preference for apple‐eating quality. Consumer preference for eating quality was assessed using three levels of product information, viz. (i) no visual information, (ii) a photograph depicting the typical appearance of the specific cultivar and (iii) an incorrect photograph, misleadingly depicting a different cultivar. Consumers scored the eating quality of ‘Pink Lady™’ served with the correct photograph significantly higher compared with presentation without pictorial information, suggesting a positive image for this trademark cultivar. Conversely, consumers had lower eating quality expectations for ‘Starking’ and ‘Golden Delicious’ indicated by lower scores when supplied with matching photos. Cultivar developers and researchers should be mindful of the confounding effect of fruit appearance on the hedonic assessment of eating quality. The order of presentation (matching or wrong photograph first) affected the preference scores and should be considered in future studies. This research shows that expectation of eating quality, created by apple appearance, impact consumers' eating experience. This is true for a cultivar with a positive image such as Pink Lady™. However, for a cultivar such as Starking lower preference scores were obtained, most probably as a result of consumers' association of striped, red cultivars and mealiness.