Effect of component quality on sensory characteristics of a fish soup

The foodservice industry is a highly competitive branch where customer satisfaction and loyalty is dependent on the price and the quality of the food. To improve cost competitiveness, instead of fresh ingredients, more preprocessed items are used as components in dishes. This may impair the perceived product quality, and thus potentially decrease customer satisfaction. The effects of the component quality on a single dish were tested by serving fish soup in a consumer study (n = 205), and by serving the dish to an in‐house panel (n = 17) using a modified check‐all‐that‐apply method. The variable used for the quality of the fish and vegetable components was a previously unprocessed/fresh component being compared to a processed. This study showed that in a modular dish, each component had an effect on the perceived quality of the dish. When replacing a preprocessed component with a fresh one, the perceived pleasantness increased to a higher level. The fish as the main dish component had the largest effect on the quality. Fresh fish has the ability to enhance the taste of soup, even with frozen vegetables. The results from this study indicate that the effect of freshness can also be perceived in the cooked product. </p

Effect of daily light integral treatments on free amino acids and sugars contributing flavor and acrylamide formation in potato tubers of Solanum tuberosum L.

To study the effect of photoperiodic conditions on the chemical composition of potato tubers, seven cultivars, grown under controlled conditions, were evaluated for the content of free amino acids (FAA) and sugars. The differences in these compounds may have an effect on the susceptibility of acrylamide formation during potato processing as well as on the flavor profile of potato products. Tubers were produced in growth chambers under two artificially induced photoperiods; 8 h light and 15 h light per day, resulting in conditions with two different daily light integral (DLI) levels. The photoperiodic treatments influenced the total FAA and free sugar contents and composition. Of the analyzed 19 FAAs, the concentrations of 14 FAAs were significantly lower in tubers exposed to the 15 h light period compared to 8 h light, whereas the glucose content was significantly higher. The total FAA concentrations were 15-46% lower and the glucose concentrations 6-64% higher in the seven cultivars exposed to the 15 h light conditions than in those grown in 8 h light