Sensory characterization of the perceived quality of East African Highland Cooking Bananas (Matooke)

Background: In recent years, it has become increasingly evident that banana projects in Uganda needed to incorporate consumer preferences into the breeding pipelines to increase the acceptability of new cultivars. A trained panel used quantitative descriptive analysis (QDA) as a tool to assess the sensory characteristics of thirty-two cooking bananas (Matooke). The aim was to investigate which characteristics best-described matooke for consumer acceptability. Results: Fourteen descriptors were generated. The preferred attributes of matooke were high intensity of yellow colour, homogeneous distribution of yellow colour, good matooke aroma, highly moldable by touch, moist and smooth in the mouth. ANOVA revealed significant differences in the yellowness, homogeneity of the colour, firmness, moistness, smoothness, matooke aroma, hardness, and moldability across the genotypes (p<0.05). PCA showed strong positive correlations between yellowness and homogeneity of the colour (R=0.92). Smoothness in the mouth and moldability by touch were strongly and positively correlated (R=0.88). Firmness in the mouth was well predicted by hardness by touch (R2=0.85). The matooke samples were ranked into two sensory clusters by agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC). Conclusion: The study showed attribute terms that could be used to describe matooke, and also revealed that QDA may be used as a tool during the assessment and selection of new cooking banana hybrids to identify relevant sensory attributes because of its ability to discriminate among the banana hybrids.