SENSORY PROFILE OF STORED SWEET CORN

Brazil has a big market for sweet corn due to the local tradition of consuming it fresh or as “pamonha” and “curau”, dishes prepared with fresh grated sweet corn mixed with milk or coconut milk, and sugar. However, due to its short shelf-life, most of the sweet corn produced in Brazil is sent to the canning industry. The goal of this research was to evaluate the quality (appearance, texture, firmness, sweetness and flavor) of fresh sweet corn stored in different packages at room temperature and under refrigeration by using Quantitative Descriptive Analysis (QDA). At room temperature (25±1°C, and 65-75% RH) for 5 days, the best quality was observed when the fresh sweet corn cobs were stored without corn husk, and placed in polystyrene tray wrapped with stretchable PVC. Under refrigeration (5±1°C) for 5 days, the best quality was found when 50% of the corn husks covered the cobs, which were stored in polystyrene tray wrapped with stretchable PVC. Refrigeration provided better quality than room temperature for all attributes evaluated.