Written by: Dr. Jeff Dunn
Associate Professor, Crop and Soil Sciences, North Carolina State University
APRES Flavor Symposium Update – Summer 2024
A couple of weeks ago, a flavor symposium was held during the annual American Peanut Research and Education Society (APRES) meeting in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The purpose of the symposium was to bring together researchers, including peanut breeders and food scientists, along with industry partners to review historical approaches and current research related to flavor improvement while discussing future projects and opportunities for enhancing roasted peanut flavor.
Although roasted peanut flavor is an important value-added quality trait, characteristics such as flavor often take a backseat to breeding priorities like improved yield, disease resistance, and seed grade quality in many peanut breeding programs.
It was recently brought to our attention at North Carolina State University that progress in roasted peanut flavor quality has become stagnant or, in some cases, declined. At the same time, consumer packaged goods companies have expressed increasing interest in developing innovative flavor profiles and higher-quality products to meet changing consumer preferences. That made this an ideal time to hold a symposium dedicated to peanut flavor.
Several fascinating presentations highlighted both the complexity of understanding peanut flavor and the challenges associated with selecting and improving flavor characteristics through breeding. Researchers also shared examples from peanuts as well as other crops that provide valuable insight into flavor improvement.
Dr. Lisa Dean presented the opening paper of the symposium. Her presentation focused on the extensive trait data that can be collected to evaluate roasted peanut flavor, including work using trained peanut flavor panels to assess a lexicon of sensory traits such as roasted peanutty, sweet, sweet aromatic, fruity, fermented, and many others. She also reviewed historical analytical chemistry approaches that provide objective measurements of roasted peanut flavor.
One of the most interesting presentations came from Dr. Denise Tieman of the University of Florida, who discussed improving tomato flavor through biochemistry, breeding, and genomics. Her presentation highlighted the role of volatile compounds in flavor development and provided insight into the genetic and biochemical pathways that influence flavor expression.
Two additional presentations were delivered by Lee Stapleton of Sensory Spectrum and myself. Lee discussed flavor panel training and practical applications for sensory evaluation, while I presented future directions for incorporating improved roasted peanut flavor into peanut breeding programs.
Did you know you can learn how to conduct sensory evaluations through a self-guided virtual course? Additional information is available through the Sensory Spectrum Course Catalog at https://www.sensoryspectrum.com/course-catalog.
The symposium concluded with one of the most valuable portions of the program—a panel discussion featuring industry representatives from Hormel, Mars-Wrigley, Smucker’s, and several peanut shelling companies.
Panelists answered both prepared and audience questions covering numerous aspects of peanut flavor, including flavor quality expectations, market-type utilization, fatty acid composition, and flavor panel profiles. These discussions provided researchers with valuable insight into industry priorities, consumer preferences, and opportunities for future collaborative research.
Although the panel addressed many important questions, it became clear that roasted peanut flavor is an incredibly complex trait that still requires substantial research.
As a peanut industry, we hope this flavor symposium helps refocus attention on high-value quality traits such as roasted peanut flavor while encouraging additional collaboration among breeders, researchers, and industry partners to deliver the flavor characteristics consumers expect.
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