Smitten resembles its grandparent Gala but is less prone to splitting and stores well. (Courtesy Honey Bear Tree Fruit Company)

European consumers prefer bicolored apples and in some countries, including Germany, they associate dark red apples with mealiness.

European Fruit Magazine reported recently on research by Katrin Korsten from the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences in Germany, who investigated whether consumers prefer a particular color of apple.

Consumers said they preferred bicolored apples over single-colored apples, though it didn’t matter whether the bicolored apples were red/green or red/yellow. They associated a combination of red and yellow with sweetness, freshness, juiciness, naturalness, and harmony. In contrast, they associated a full dark red color with mealiness and judged them as artificial and unnatural. Green is associated with freshness, sourness, and underripeness.

Korsten also had consumers evaluate different strains of certain varieties. With Gala, the dark-red Annaglo strain was judged less favorably than the orange/red striped Gala strain Jugala, while the dark-red striped Brookfield Gala was in the middle.

For more information, see “Colour the most important consumer criterion for apples,” in the June 2014 issue of European Fruit Magazine.