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While the ranking in Table 3 of the apples that were evaluated was based primarily on taste and overall assessment, appearance, crispness, juiciness, and flesh texture are important qualities that influence consumer purchase of apples. While there was some variability in scores, nearly all of these apples ranked high or extremely high (below 3.5). The importance of these attributes in overall quality is illustrated in the comments that the participants had about individual apples.

An excellent way to evaluate a consumers assessment of an apple is to ask if they would purchase it (Table 5). All apples in this survey were well received and well liked by participants. Between 70 and 79% of the participants said that they would purchase Candy Crisp, Liberty, Shamrock, and Zestar!, between 80 to 89% said that they would purchase Akane, Crimson Crisp, Hudson Golden Gem, Sansa, and Silken, while over 90% said that they would purchase Creston, MN 1914, NJ 90, and Shizuka. Respondents also were asked to indicate if they would purchase this apple in preference to the apple(s) that they normally purchase. The differences among varieties in response to this question were quite large and ranged from 27% for Hawkeye Delicious to 63% for NJ 90. The mean response to this question was 48% which indicates that 48% of the respondents said that they would purchase the varieties under evaluation in preference to the variety that they normally purchase. This is very noteworthy since it is difficult to change consumer purchasing habits, and to have nearly half of the participants express a willingness to do so attests to the attractiveness of these varieties.

| Table 5 |

Respondents were asked to indicate how far they would drive to purchase this variety. The range is an indication of the degree that a respondent liked the variety. For three quarters of the varieties, some respondents said that they would drive 50 miles or more just to purchase this variety. The mean distance that individuals would drive for all varieties to specifically purchase this variety was 13.3 miles, which is quite a long distance specifically to purchase apples. A conclusion that we can draw from this result is that individuals like new apples and they are willing to drive some distance to purchase them. These data were taken in the fall of 2007 when gas prices were lower. We suspect that the willingness of consumers to travels to purchase apples will be impacted similarly to other driving-related activities.

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