The future of quality

Looking back twenty-one years when the Georgia Postharvest Team started its work that help lead to these conferences, much has changed. In the world of fruit and vegetable quality the most significant changes have been the introduction of fresh-cut products with many more pre-packaged items, the promise and lack of adoption of irradiation and GMOs in the marketplace, and a much more consumerdriven market. We predict that the next 10-20 years will see less total consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables with less emphasis on fresh and natural products, less emphasis on extended shelf life and low prices, fewer bulk items, and less interest in postharvest physiology and low-cost crop production. During the time there will be a similar emphasis on convenience of fruit and vegetable products and Purchase Quality. We also expect to see more emphasis on Quality of the products, particularly Consumption Quality and Value, with more local production and technological innovations to deliver fuller flavour, and research emphasising preharvest factors in postharvest quality as well as sustainable production to lessen undesirable impact to the environment. If this series of conferences retains its triennial cycle, it will be interesting to review these predictions at the 2012 and 2021 conferences, possibly back here in Wageningen. We suspect that some of these predictions will be on target while others miss the mark completely. What is important is that we learn from the past, realise that extrapolating into the future solely from present circumstances is almost always inaccurate, and that flexibility to changing circumstances is a hallmark of success. INTRODUCTION There is great danger in attempting to predict the future, because typically the general assumptions made are in error. The marketplace rewards those who are able to anticipate consumer demands and exploit them. The marketplace also punishes those who are either too early or too late to anticipate these trends. This chapter seeks to learn from the past to anticipate future trends in the quality of fresh fruits and vegetables. Its true value will not necessarily to be right when judged ten years from now. Rather it will be to challenge the reader to think about the future and attempt to learn from the past. MegaTrends 2000 listed ten trends that were to shape America and influence the rest of the world (Naisbitt and Aburdene, 1990). Of most interest here were the predictions of (1) "The Global Economic Boom of the 1990's", (6) "The Rise of the Pacific Rim", and (8) "The Age of Biology". The extended boom of the 1990's was a reasonably accurate prediction as was the rise of the Pacific Rim, although the authors failed to predict the collapse of Asian economies. They did anticipate opposition to genetically modified food products, but they were confident that the molecular biologists would triumph. Their prediction may come true, but, if it does, it will be later than anticipated. In a more recent volume focused on Asia, Naisbitt (1996) proclaims that "Asia will become the dominant region in the world: economically, politically and culturally. " Of the eight megatrends described, four have direct relevance to fruits and vegetables: (3) "From Export-Led to Consumer-Driven", (4) "From GovernmentControlled to Market-Driven", (5) "From Farms to Supercities" and (6) "From LaborIntensive to High Technology". Again, no indication of a downturn in the Asian economy was noted, but the drive to adopt perspectives, techniques and technologies common to Europe and North America is becoming more evident. If Naisbitt is right, those of us in Proc. Int. Conf. Quality in Chains Eds. Tijskens & Vollebregt Acta Hort. 604, ISHS 2003 50 the northwestern quadrisphere must continue to advance in these areas, particularly in becoming more consumer-driven and adopting high technology, just to keep up. Strauss and Howe (1997) indicate in The Fourth Turning that the reason so many predictions about the future are in error is that most prophets extrapolate the future from the present and immediate past assuming a linear progression. In this book history is presented as a cyclical process based on the recurrence of a four-generation hierarchy. Their view of history describes a “turning” as one generation supplants another, and different values prevail. They predicted that a cataclysmic event would occur early in the 21 century that would lead to a world crisis (probably a major war fought to a decisive end) and a major shift in perspective and policy. The events of September 11, 2001, certainly fit their catalysing event in this scenario with major attitudinal change in the United States and a more sceptical Europe looking on. A major war involving many nations would certainly disrupt global trade in fresh fruits and vegetables and require major changes in the way they are marketed and distributed. In The Future of Life, Wilson (2002) suggests that we need to look at a horizon of 50 – 100 years into the future. He argues that we are letting short-term economic interests direct public policy with long-term consequences to the environment. Current economic analyses of building and production activities frequently do not take environmental costs into consideration. Current generations are depleting the natural resources that future generations will need to survive. He takes an optimistic view that governments will recognise their responsibilities in maintaining biodiversity and steer a middle course between unconscious development and environmental extremism. His suggested solution is still rather radical for the American mind but should be received with much more sympathy in Europe. Among his predictions is a huge increase in demand for imported food for China accompanied by a decrease in grain consumption with a requisite increase in fruit and vegetable consumption. RETROSPECTIVE In 1982 a Postharvest Team was established at the University of Georgia Experiment Station in Experiment, Georgia, USA. Its mission was to apply a systems approach to understanding the quality of fruits and vegetables during postharvest handling. It featured a mobile laboratory that could go on sight to the field and trace changes in quality to the processing plant (Prussia and Tollner, 1984). It quickly shifted from frozen southern peas (Prussia and Shewfelt, 1985) to fresh-market items such as snap beans (Shewfelt et al., 1986) tomatoes (Campbell et al., 1986; Shewfelt et al., 1987), peaches (Jordan et al., 1987a; Thai and Shewfelt, 1990), and lettuce (Muttiah et al., 1988). Along the way the team identified the interfaces (1) between the field and the packinghouse and (2) between the retail outlet and the consumer as the two most critical, unexplored areas of postharvest research. While little was achieved at the first interface (Brennan and Shewfelt, 1989; Beverly et al., 1993), many studies focused at the second (Shewfelt et al., 1989; Malundo et al., 1995, 1997, 2001a,b). The major contributions of the Team effort were to (1) introduce a systems approach to an understanding of postharvest handling of fruits and vegetables (Prussia et al., 1986; Prussia and Hubbert, 1991), (2) champion a consumer orientation to fruit and vegetable quality rather than the prevailing product orientation (Shewfelt 1987, 1990) and provide an economic component to postharvest research (Jordan et al. 1985, 1986, 1987 a,b, 1988). The Team’s effort culminated in a book that summarised its findings and perspective (Shewfelt and Prussia, 1993). Later a concerted effort on fruit and vegetable quality was initiated in Europe with a strong emphasis on modeling (Singh and Oliveira, 1994). One of the leaders in this effort was at Wageningen. Key contributions of this research included development of mathematical and conceptual models of consumer preference (Steenkamp, 1987; Linnemann et al., 1998), keeping quality (van Doorn and Tijskens, 1991; Tijskens and Polderdijk, 1996; Tijskens et al., 1997; Schouten et al., 1997), chilling injury (Tijskens et al., 1994), and colour changes (Tijskens and Evelo, 1994).