The Plant Innovation Center at the University of Florida is an interdisciplinary group of researchers that span five colleges, conspiring to make fruits and vegetables more attractive. The work uses the model of Consumer Assisted Selection, monitoring consumer preferences and then defining breeding and production priorities based on observed outcomes. The concept is a simple one-- Use what we have learned from analysis of market segments to define what food improvements might look like, then use the best technologies to achieve those goals. (Slides created by Dr. Dave Clark for the PIC, used by Folta with permission).

1. Consumer-Assisted Selection: Making New
Plants That Look, Smell & Taste Better
Kevin M. Folta
Professor and Chair, Horticultural Sciences Department
University of Florida

2. Production Technologies
• Supply chain managements shapes breeding targets
• Production
• Shipping & handling
• Packaging & processing
• Point of purchase

3. Where are we now?
• Our flowers, fruits and vegetables have
changed a lot
– PRODUCTION has changed
– Product ALWAYS available
– Product is NOT always good
– Food products are diverse
– Food is inexpensive
• We have a serious obesity
problem
– We are not vitamin deficient…

4. Key Words for US Horticulture
HEALTHY
SAFETY
SUSTAINABLE/LOCAL
CONSUMER PREFERENCE
VALUE ADDED

5. What do consumers experience?
Sight
Touch
Smell
Sight
Touch
Smell
Taste - memory

6. What do breeders experience?

7. Who are the consumers?

8. Who are the breeders?

9. A SERIOUS Disconnect
• Most flowers, fruits and vegetables are
bought by women and they influence the
purchasing decisions on much of the rest
• Most plant breeders and many industry
decision makers are men

10. A BIG Question
• How do we find out what consumers
want?
– Most people really don’t know…
– It is very hard to measure emotion
– It is even harder to measure how much more
people will pay if stimulated

11. Another BIG Question
• How do we decide goals for new crop
development?
– Usually based on yield characters (retrospect)
– Easy to measure and predict
– It is difficult to measure the pleasure and
value of flavor and fragrance
Dr. Dave Clark – PIC Director
A breeder rethinking
priorities!

12. UF/IFAS-PIC
BASIC Science
Inputs
APPLIED Science
Outputs
Sensory Analysis
Plant Genetics
Plant Production
Food Science
Postharvest
Shipping & Handling
New Product
Development
Business &
Marketing
New Variety
Development
Institutional & Corporate
Partnerships
Plant Supply Chain

13. Some VIPs

14. Appealing to Consumers’ Senses
• Psychophysics – QUANTIFIES THE RELATIONSHIP
between physical stimuli and the sensations and
perceptions they effect (behavior & emotions)
Like
Buy

15. Appealing to Consumers’ Senses
• Physical stimuli in plants – controlled by
environment and genetic traits that are
measured empirically
– Sight: pigments (anthocyanins, carotenoids etc.)
– Taste & Smell: sugars, acids, volatiles
– Feel: physical features (trichomes, cuticles etc.)
min10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
pA
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FID1 A, (C:DOCUME~1UCNTCME1TACMRF~1NOV14031F2001.D)
6.0386.131
6.638
6.880
7.463
10.218
10.623
10.93111.000
12.29612.387
13.098
13.501
17.371-benzaldehyde
18.681
19.975-benzylalcohol
20.425-phenylacetaldehyde
21.239-benzylacetate
22.357-methylbenzoate
22.952-2-phenylethanol
25.911-methylsalicylate
27.18427.337-phenethylacetate
27.638
28.969-nonylacetate(IS)
30.426
30.918-eugenol
31.736
31.929
32.239
32.458-a-ionone
33.286
33.681-isoeugenol
34.936
35.131-B-ionone
41.143
42.244-benzylbenzoate
44.576-phenethylbenzoate

16. Physical fruit attributes
C1 Fruit is round
C2 A golden-orange colored fruit
C3 Fruit is juicy
C4 Fruit has pinkish colored flesh
C5 Fruit is firm
C6 Plant yields a round, slightly ribbed fruit
C7 Fruit has a plum-shape
C8 Produces striped fruit
C9 Fruit has a deep red color
5 Inch Garden Starter Tomato Plant IdeaMap® study
– Colquhoun & Moskowitz
Fruit Flavor
A1 Plant produces a sweet fruit
A2 Fruit has a full balanced flavor
A3 A tart/acidic fruit
A4 Fruit has a smoky sweetness
A5 Fruit is sweet with fruity complexity
A6 Plant has fruit with a classic tomato flavor
A7 Deep sweet fruit with a hint of tartness
A8 Mild sweet flavored fruit
A9 Fruit has a tropical flavor
Physical plant attributes
B1 Plant grows short and bushy
B2 Plant bears for an extended period
B3 Produces many fruit
B4 Potato-leaved foliage
B5 Short harvest season
B6 Bears fruit early in the season
B7 Heat tolerant plant
B8 Disease resistant plant
B9 Plant grows tall and needs staking
Plant Branding
D1 "Garden Gem"
D2 "Big Boy"
D3 "Brandywine"
D4 "Sun Gold"
D5 "Suwannee"
D6 "Mortgage Lifter"
D7 "Better Boy"
D8 "Garden Treasure"
D9 "Garden Charm"

17. Tomato Topline
0.00
0.05
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0.15
0.20
0.25
0.30
0.35
0.40
0.45
A1
A2
A3
A4
A5
A6
A7
A8
A9
B1
B2
B3
B4
B5
B6
B7
B8
B9
C1
C2
C3
C4
C5
C6
C7
C8
C9
D1
D2
D3
D4
D5
D6
D7
D8
D9
NormalizedScale
Coded Elements
InV
$$$
sweet
classic flavor
many fruit
deep redearly
‘Garden Gem’

18. So what do people want in a garden tomato?
• 300+ US consumers
1. Sweet, classic tomato flavor – sensory
2. Prolific fruiting – psychological (gratification)
3. Early season fruiting – psychological (gratification)
4. Has deep red color – sensory
5. Name it ‘Garden Gem’
• All of these traits are controlled genetically

19. Harry’s tomato experiment – The
recipe for a great tasting tomato
Tieman, Bliss, McIntyre, Blandon-Ubeda, Bies, Osabasi,
Rodiguez, van her Knaap, Taylor, Goulet, Mageroy, Snyder,
Colquhoun, Moskowitz, Clark, Sims, Bartoshuk & Klee
(2012). Current Biology, 22, 1-5.

20. Harry Klee

21. Charlie Sims & Linda Bartoshuk

22. Tomato Flavor Tests
• 79 heirloom tomato varieties tested
• 68 tomato flavor constituents measured in each variety
– Sugars, acids, volatiles
• 170 subjects
(not all subjects tasted all varieties)
– Taste (e.g., sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami)
– Flavor
– Palatability
• Developed and validated statistical
models to explain the chemistry of liking

23. 0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Like
glucose isobutyl acetateethyl vinyl ketone 2-methyl-1-butanol6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one
Volatiles
Concentration
• Some volatiles correlated positively.
• Some correlated negatively.
• Some did not seem to matter.
• “Recipe” for a better tomato:
– Pick the appropriate sugar level
– Increase volatiles with positive correlations
– Decrease volatiles with negative correlations

24. A surprising discovery in the tomato data:
Multiple regression shows that the volatiles in
tomatoes make a significant contribution to
sweetness independent of sugar.

25. Sweetness is much more than sugar in tomato

26. Sweetness is much more than sugar in strawberry too…

27. A new source of sweetness?
• Can we add the
volatiles that induce
sweet in citrus (and
potentially other fruit)
products to make them
sweeter with less
sugar?

28. chromosome number
correlationofSNPtotrait Citric acid
Guiacol
Genome Wide Association Study of 160 tomato genomes

29. ‘Garden Gem’
1. Sweet classic tomato flavor
2. Prolific fruiting
3. Early season fruiting
4. NEEDS deep red color – have
markers for crimson gene
5. Versatile use
www.gardengemtomato.com
($20 donation = seeds from 2 new varieties)

30. Consumer-assisted Selection
• A great tasting “commercial” tomato is still a challenge. But…
• We have defined the target
• We have identified most of the key genes
• We have started moving them into elite germplasm
• There are SNP associations with every compound that consumers find
desirable/undesirable
• It is now just a matter of putting the biochemical and genetic recipe
together
• This integrated approach is applicable to any horticultural crop

31. ‘Indigo Crisp’ Blueberry
1. Large sweet berries
2. Prolific early season fruiting
3. Berries POP when bitten
4. New uses for processing – crisp
texture in pasteurized yogurt

32. ‘Sweet Sensation’ Strawberry
1. Large sweet berries
2. Prolific early season fruiting
3. Excellent sugar/acid ratio
4. Lots of sweet volatiles
5. First named strawberry in the US

33. Pre- / Post-harvest light
treatments to maximize
flavor, nutrition, and shelf
life.
Thomas Colquhoun, Sofia
Carvalho, Michael Schwieterman

34. What’s Next?
• Outcomes
• If we make plants people like more…
– And if we grow them well…
– And package and ship them properly…
– And put them in the market properly…
• Will they buy more of them?
• Will they eat more of them?
• Will they be healthier?
• How can this benefit the
Florida/USA farmer?

35. Opportunities - colleagues
• Dr. Julie Mennella – Monell Institute (Penn)
sensory
• Dr. Lisa Feldman-Barrett – Northeastern
University (Boston) – fMRI
• Can we assist with your research questions?

36. Opportunities
• Coca-Cola Company
• WalMart
• Green Mountain/Keurig
• Costa Plants
• JR Simplot Co
• NSF
• NIFA
• NIH
• FDACS
• Florida Tomato Committee
• UF/IFAS & UFRF seed funds

37. More Information
http://hort.ifas.ufl.edu/pic/
kfolta@ufl.edu
@kevinfolta
www.arabidopsisthaliana.com
www.talkingbiotechpodcast.com