Innovative Products for Food Industries

For Consumer Convenience: New and Improved Quality Food Products

by Antoinette A. Betschart, Director, Western Regional Research Center, and Glenn Fuller, Research Leader, Crop Improvement and Utilization Research, Western Regional Research Center, ARS, USDA, Albany, CA.

Americans deserve the best food that science and technology can provide. They like to eat, but they want to be certain that what they consume is nutritious, safe, and pleasing to the palate. For over 100 years, USDA researchers with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) have played a leading role in introducing and improving foods in the United States.

In its early years, USDA research was directed toward the farmer by providing new crops and by increasing the yields of major crops. Recently, the consumer's needs have furnished important goals for ARS scientists, who work to improve the safety, taste, and nutritional quality of foods. New knowledge in biochemistry, plant and animal physiology, and especially genetics has led to more information from the laboratory that supplements breeding research in the field. The techniques and methods used to develop new and improved foods from plants are described here.

New and Hardier Crops Through Preservation of Plant Species

There is increased awareness that many species of plants and many strains within species are endangered because of the loss of habitat and because of cultivation of only the few varieties that produce the best yields. To avoid potential losses of species and strains, some ARS scientists spend significant parts of their careers searching the world for plant varieties. To preserve these species and lines, the National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS) was established for the collection, evaluation, preservation, and distribution of plant germplasm throughout the world. (Germplasm is the seeds or other parts of plants that can be grown into whole plants with inherited characteristics.)

In 1989, ARS scientists introduced a new variety of orange, called Ambersweet, in Florida. Ambersweet trees can survive freezes of 18 degrees F without twig damage.

Randall Smith/USDA 92BWO838

Germplasm is difficult to preserve, since many kinds of plant seeds and propagative tissue do not store well and must be grown and recovered periodically. Promising research is in progress to store viable seeds and tissue at liquid nitrogen temperatures(-320 F) for many years, to reduce the labor and time required with present procedures. Many of the stored varieties of plants may be sources of important traits, such as disease and insect resistance or cold-hardiness.

In 1989, ARS scientists introduced a new variety of orange, called Ambersweet, in Florida. It had taken 26 years to bring out this new hybrid, which has the trait of cold-hardiness. Ambersweet trees were able to survive freezes of 18 F without twig damage. Because the evaluation of each generation requires waiting several years for the young tree to bear fruit, it takes an especially long time to breed new varieties of trees.

Through systematic searching, unusual crops unfamiliar to most U.S. consumers have been found, especially tropical and subtropical fruits that may be grown in Hawaii, Florida, or southern California. Carambola, or star fruit, for instance, is now finding markets in Hawaii and on the mainland. Other interesting fruits under investigation include rambutan and lychee. Lychee, familiar to consumers of Chinese cuisine in the United States, is a soft and tasty fruit with milky-white flesh. It may be eaten fresh, canned, or preserved. Rambutan, a relative of the lychee, is a native of Malaysia. Its spiny-looking skin can be easily removed to reveal a sweet, crunchy, juicy fruit, which may be eaten fresh or cooked. Another candidate for the market is the pili nut from the Philippines. These nuts are high in oil and protein, and have a distinctive flavor when roasted.

Robert Knight, an ARS horticulturalist, displays the cross section of a carambola or star fruit to show the distinctive star shape. Markets for carambola are increasing in Hawaii and on the mainland.

Barry Fitzgerald/USDA 0786X886-22

Lychee, a sweet tropical fruit, is a good source of vitamin C. The Florida lychee crop, shipped primarily to the east coast and Midwest, is worth almost $2 million a year.

Barry Fitzgerald/USDA 0786X886-6

Better Fresh Produce Through Biological Laboratory Techniques

The scientific breeding of plants has been immensely successful in creating and improving crops, but it is slow. New characteristics have to be found (if they exist) in the germplasm. Then the traits must be laboriously incorporated into the plant by crossing them repeatedly, for several generations, with a variety that has other good characteristics. Today, laboratory techniques based on plant physiology and biochemistry may accelerate the process of creating, identifying, and incorporating new and useful traits.