Consumer acceptability of fried chips made from South African sweet potato cultivars

In South Africa, the processing of sweet potatoes has a high potential for economic gain, therefore, chips were prepared from six sweet potato cultivars with varying flesh colours for consumer preference evaluation. Scoring was based on colour, crispness, taste and overall ranking by four groups of a total of 159 people at distinct locations. Instrumental assessment included colour measurement of chips, and dry mass and total carotenoid content of fresh roots. Analysis of variance, principal component analysis and Pearson correlation analysis were performed. Significant differences were found in taste/flavour, crispness and overall consumer ranking as well as for all instrumental measurements among chips made from the different cultivars. Orange-fleshed cultivars Bophelo, W-119 and Beauregard had values of 108.27, 112.37 and 113.33 µg/g for total carotenoids, respectively. The six cultivars were grouped into three clusters based on overall consumer rating, crispness, carotenoid content, colour a*, taste/flavour, oxidation and dry mass, colour L* and appearance. The results indicate that cultivars Beauregard and Bophelo can be recommended for making fried chips for South African consumers.