Market Prospects for Groundnut in West Africa COMMON FUND ...

groundnuts are obliged to establish export limits that meet importers’
requirements. This leads to economic loss, if the requirements are
unnecessarily strict. Where a local food is also an export item, exportation of
the most wholesome food may lead to local consumption of more
contaminated foods. In part, this augments the risk of toxic effects in the
indigenous population.
Consumer preferences
Groundnut quality and consumers preference may be judged by the following
parameters:
Flavor: The flavor of roasted groundnuts plays important role in its acceptance
by consumers and other users. Flavor also plays an important role in the
acceptability of groundnut products such as peanut butter. Samples of several
high yielding genotypes showed that their flavor quality needs improvement.
A method of evaluating the cooking quality of groundnuts by boiling them in
shell has been standardized at ICRISAT (ICRISAT Report 1990). More than
300 compounds have been detected in roasted groundnut. Sugars in
groundnut also play an important role as precursors in the production of the
typical roasted groundnut flavor. Thus it is important to standardize the test
used to evaluate the acceptability of roasted groundnut by conducting sensory
evaluation and relating the findings to the presence or absence of various
volatile compounds and the concentrations in which they are present. Studies
indicate that hexanal concentration is one of the eight compounds that gives
an objectionable flavor to groundnut and correlated with a professional flavor
profile panelists’ evaluation. Characterization of flavor compound by gas
chromatography would enable breeders to identify those cultivars that have a
good flavor profile for further development (Ahmed and Young 1982).
Texture: Crunchy and crisp are textural attributes that are important and
desirable sensory qualities of groundnuts. Crisp food is one that is firm (stiff)
and snaps easily when deformed emitting a crunchy/crackly sound. Based on
consumer study, crispness has been reported to be the most versatile single
texture parameter. A number of instruments have been developed for
measuring mechanical properties of nuts, which can be related to texture of
the kernels.
Sensory quality: Mechanical force and work usually have strong inverse
correlation with sensory crispness and crunchiness scores. Sensory evaluation
of texture in foods belongs to the domain of psychology known as
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