What [breeders] say to me over and over again is no one’s ever asked me about flavor. No one asks me about flavor. They always ask me about yield and disease resistance… All we have to do is select for flavor.
That’s from an interview with Chef Dan Barber of Blue Hill at Stone Barns, as reported on the Organic Seed Alliance blog. It seemed a bit overstated, so I posted the quote without further comment on PB Forum, hoping to elicit a response from the plant breeding community, and I was not disappointed. Here’s Nick Birch of the James Hutton Institute, Dundee:
At our institute (formerly SCRI), flavour and texture are key selection traits for soft fruit varieties (raspberries, blackcurrants, etc), alongside yield and pest/disease resistance traits.
Supermarkets in the U.K. generally select soft fruit varieties to sell mainly based on cosmetic traits, including flavour, colour, size, shape, texture and shelf life. However, environmental stress tolerance and pest/disease resistance are becoming more important as pesticide options get restricted via EU regulations.
And then came something from Bill Doley:
It seems that we’ve hit on the root of the problem here, the disconnect between the consumer and the farmer/producer, which might be worse in the US than most other places. With the long value chain between the plant breeder and the consumer, there can be myriad intermediaries producing seed, selling seed, producing the crop, and wholesaling, shipping and retailing the produce. Consumer feedback becomes a disappointing game of whisper down the lane.
Thus the booming popularity of “Fresh and Local” in the US, coupled with the resurgence of interest in so-called heirloom varieties. Now the consumers are meeting the farmers, providing the once lost opportunity to know more about the vegetables than simply the generic names provided in the supermarket produce section. They discuss their preferences and which varieties satisfy them, a very good start to solving the problem of tasteless commodity produce.
And finally Peter Glen Walley of the University of Warwick:
The breeding companies that I have spoken to or have worked with in the UK have breeding programmes that are heavily influenced by consumer preference (as directed by the supermarkets), be it general preference or the more selective niche markets. The global seed companies also use local preferences in markets around the world – selectively targeting their produce.
Flavour and texture have been a driving force in the tomato and leafy veg industries, with yield still a primary factor. I agree with Nick, consumer preference is still heavily influenced by cosmetic traits; indeed, much of our work at Warwick Crop Centre is now centred on how we can maintain this quality and yield as growth conditions begin to change through environmental stress.
So is Chef Barber hanging out with the wrong breeders? If he is, perhaps things are changing.