| dc.description.abstract | Emerging food production and processing systems must be evaluated not only by their technical performance, but also by the quality of the products they produce and the way consumers understand and respond to them. This thesis evaluated two emerging food system contexts: aquaponic cherry tomato production and controlled atmosphere stunning (CAS) in poultry processing. The first study examined the effects of aquaponic system design and harvest timing on cherry tomato quality using instrumental color and texture analysis, trained descriptive sensory analysis, and electronic nose volatile profiling. Tomatoes were harvested once per week at the red-ripe stage over five weeks from four aquaponic treatments differing in hydraulic configurations and light exposure: light-coupled (LC), light-decoupled (LD), dark-coupled (DC), and dark-decoupled (DD) systems. Hydroponic reference samples were included when available between weeks 2-5. Instrumental color and hardness showed intermittent treatment differences, but subtle differences between individual harvest weeks had the most influence on measured tomato attributes. Trained sensory panel results showed limited treatment separation across most attributes, although green aroma significantly declined across harvest weeks in aquaponic treatments. Electronic nose analysis showed that volatile fingerprints varied by harvest week and production system, but targeted, green-associated volatile measures were not significantly correlated with sensory green aroma. These findings indicate that aquaponic tomato quality is multidimensional and that instrumental, sensory, and volatile measures can provide complementary information.
The second study evaluated how information depth influenced consumer understanding, perceptions, acceptance, and WTP for aquaponic tomato production and CAS poultry processing. A randomized online survey was conducted with 1,064 U.S. respondents, including 580 respondents in the tomato branch and 484 in the poultry branch. Within each branch, respondents were assigned Control, Basic, or Detailed system information conditions. Detailed system information improved aquaponic knowledge, perceived information understanding, expected quality, perceived sustainability, and acceptance, but did not significantly increase aquaponic WTP. In the poultry branch, information depth improved CAS and electrical stunning knowledge, perceived understanding, and information quality, but did not significantly affect CAS acceptance, WTP, or perspectives on the humaneness of each system. Across both branches, choice likelihood of either system within the branch was more strongly associated with purchase comfort, expected product quality, and perceived sustainability/ humaneness of the system than with understanding of the provided information alone. CATA and ranking results further showed that respondents prioritized familiar and outcome-based attributes, including food safety, reduced pesticide use, efficient water use, healthy birds, and reduced pain. | en_US |
