Applied research on the production and storage of fruit is often responding to the needs of industry to solve problems and/or exploit economic opportunities.In New Zealand we often use consumer research to guide the development of these applied fruit-related projects.This presentation will take examples from our laboratory to demonstrate how consumer science can add value to plant science.The examples will include: the adoption of sensory and then consumer methods to understand the importance of instrumental measurements of quality,how the monetary value associated with improvements in quality can be assessed,consumer assessment of fruit disorders and how this affects rejection of fruit.The examples will come from research on apples,kiwifruit and avocado.The success of this research relies not only on knowledge of the diversity of available consumer science methodologies,but also on the ability of scientists to understand and handle what are intrinsically highly perishable foods.