Fruit and Vegetable Quality

ability is needed to be useful in assessing quality. A potential answer
lies in expressing acceptability as a probability distribution of percent-
age of a population finding the product acceptable (Walters and Bergiel,
1989; Shewfelt et al., 1997) using either a 5-point purchase intent scale
(Moskowitz, 1994), a 3-point acceptability scale (Shewfelt et al., 1997),
or even an accept-reject forced choice.
The conditionsunder which consumers are valid assessorsof qual-
ity and acceptability are not always clear. Many investigators collect fla-
vor, appearance, and textural acceptability data as well as even more
detailed information from consumer judges but then complain that con-
sumers are not reliable panelists. Some suggest that consumer panelists
can evaluate a wide variety of characteristics (Moskowitz, 1994) while
others recommend that they be confined to judgments on acceptability
alone. Perhaps the most cogent comment on this topic is that, “Con-
sumers mostly know and can say what they like and dislike, even when
they find it difficult to say why” (Conner, 1994, p. 170). The most
promising alternative is to have consumers evaluate products only for
overall acceptability (Conner, 1994) while simultaneously using a de-
scriptive panel to quantify specific descriptive notes (Shewfelt et al.,
1997).
Assessment tools to differentiate between defect and excellenceori-
entations of quality characteristics are needed when it is recognized that
not all characteristics are perceived equally. Some definitions of qual-
ity are clearly defect-based with the emphasis of quality management
on elimination of defects (Crosby, 1979; Juran and Gryna, 1980), while
others permit an appreciation of degree of excellence (Kramer and
Twigg, 1970; Deming, 1986; Surak and McAnelly, 1992; Bounds et al.,
1994). With respect to fruits and vegetables, appearance and textural
characteristics tend to be related to a presence or absence of defects,
while flavor characteristics can be expressed both in the form of defects
(off-flavors) and degree of excellence (intensity of full or ripe flavor)
(Shewfelt, 1993). While Hedonic (Peryam and Pilgrim, 1957) or other
types of scaling are appropriate for an excellence-based quality orienta-
tion, they are probably not appropriate for defect-based quality decisions
where quality is either acceptable or unacceptable. Use of a 3-point ac-
ceptability scale (unacceptable-acceptable-superior) (Shewfelt et al.,
1997) or 5-point purchase acceptability scale (Moskowitz, 1994) pro-
vides a means of integrating across defect and excellence, particularly
if the data are transformed and expressed as probability distributions as
described above.

148 FRUIT AND VEGETABLE QUALITY