Malcolm Povey, professor of food physics at the University of Leeds found that Jazz apples produce more enjoyment of biting than other crunchy foods such as thick-cut crisps and Rich Tea biscuits. “When it comes to the pleasure in eating, sound is as important as colour and taste, but how our brain interprets this information is not yet understood,” said Prof Povey. “When you munch a Jazz apple, you are in fact creating massive peaks of ultrasound in your head that we experience as a vibration sensation.”
The group of subjects in the research was culturally diverse, but all were able to identify crispiness to the same degree. “It is highly probably that we are all genetically disposed to appreciating crispiness as a sign of freshness in food,” said Prof Povey.
The taste panel findings revealed that the subjects recorded Jazz as providing the most enjoyment of biting with a top score of 7.8 on a scale of 0-10. Lab research using a texture-analyser machine that bit into the food and recorded the sound showed that apples produced far more ultrasound that crisps or biscuits.
“We want to get the Jazz name better known and to find out more reasons why the apple is so good other than just, ‘it tastes great,’” said Worldwide Fruit’s Steve Maxwell. “We want to keep stressing the difference of Jazz and this research is quirky and fun.” The findings were released this week and as FPJ went to press, the professor was being interviewed by regional and national dailies and the item was also featured on Sky News.
Jazz is still in the midst of its New Zealand season and fruit is expected to be available until late September when supplies will switch into French product and small volumes of English. UK grown volumes are on the increase though with 200,000 trees planted over the last winter. “Jazz is now a niche variety but over the next two to three years we want to get it more into the mainstream,” said Maxwell. Fruit is stocked by Waitrose and M&S and as a premium line at Tesco.
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