First purchases of fruit are mainly dependent on aspects of appearance such as color. However, repeat buys of fruit are determined by internal quality traits such as flavor-related volatiles. Differences in volatile profiles in white- and red-fleshed peach fruit are not well understood. In the present study, peach cultivars with white- and red-fleshed fruit were subjected to sensory analysis using electronic nose (e-nose) to evaluate overview volatile profiles. Approximately 97.3% of the total variation in peach color-volatiles was explained by the first principle component 1 (PC1) and PC2. After analyzing sensory differences between peach fruit samples, 50 volatile compounds were characterized based on GC-MS. Multivariate analysis such as partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) was applied to identify volatile compounds that contribute to difference in white- and red-fleshed peach fruit cultivars. A total of 18 volatiles that could separate peach fruit cultivars with different colors in flesh during ripening were identified based on variable importance in projection (VIP) score. Fruity note latone γ-hexalactone had higher contents in red-fleshed cultivars, while grassy note C6 compounds such as hexanal, 2-hexenal, (E)-2-hexenal, 1-hexanol, and (Z)-2-hexen-1-ol showed great accumulation in white-fleshed peach fruit.
Keywords: e-nose; fruit color; multivariate analysis; ripening; volatiles.