Health and sensory related quality of vegetables and fruits, including berries (F&V) is mainly determined by the phytochemicals, including both nutrients and secondary plant metabolites, present in the plant food. The content of these metabolites is, in addition to genetic background, greatly influenced by growth conditions, postharvest factors and processing, and their concentration and composition may be decisive for several food plant quality traits, such as flavour, odour, colour, shelf life and healt h value.
Up till now, the main focus has usually been to study selected phytochemicals identified as important for sensory and health related quality of F&V. However, in the last few years, development of novel analytical technology combined with available plant metabolite data bases and advanced data analysis has made high-throughput metabolomics analysis for simultaneous measurement of a wide range of phytochemicals in F&V feasible. Metabolomics aim to measure all metabolites or as many compounds as possi ble in a sample, and is now accepted internationally as a useful means both in plant science as well in medical and nutritional sciences.
The establishment of metabolomics at Nofima Mat AS is strategically important for future research in the area of F&V. This project will focus on the metabolomics establishment, but will also, with the use of plant materials from on-going funded projects, investigate the effects of preharvest and postharvest conditions (light and temperature) and processing on the behavi our of phytochemicals in Brassica vegetables and different cultivars of strawberry and raspberry using a metabolomics approach.
