Root, tuber and banana (RTB) crops play a vital role in household food and income security across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). As such, breeding programmes have worked for decades to genetically improve these crops, particularly in terms of yield and pest and disease resistance, to increase the security they provide to millions of people. Despite the progress made in these areas, there remains a gap in understanding of varietal traits and preferences for RTB varieties in terms of processing and consumption characteristics for a range of RTB products. This has contributed to low levels of adoption of new varieties and its potential benefits. There is also limited understanding of the socio-cultural influences on RTB product preferences and the differentiated needs of men, women, and other social groups involved in RTB food chains in SSA.

To address these challenges, an interdisciplinary and participatory five-step methodology was developed to identify demand for quality characteristics among diverse user groups along RTB food chains. This initiative was part of work package 1 of the ‘Breeding RTB Products for End User Preferences’ or RTBfoods project, which aims to link local consumer preferences with breeders’ selection criteria to ensure adoption along the value-chains of cassava, yam, sweetpotato, potato and cooking banana products.

The methodology includes an evidence review, consultations with key informants and rural communities, processing diagnosis with experienced processors and consumer testing in urban and rural areas. Quality characteristics are then prioritised into a Food Product Profile by user group to inform further work of biochemists and breeder sin developing improved selection tools. Importantly, the methodology incorporates a sampling and conceptual foundation to enable analysis by gender and other factors of social difference, to help crop breeders identify and prioritise specific traits in their breeding programmes.

This initiative presents a new basis to understand consumer preferences for RTB crops. The methodology is currently being applied, adapted and – importantly - improved by 12 interdisciplinary teams of food technologists, economists and gender specialists in five project countries: Benin, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Nigeria and Uganda, in addition to being disseminated to the NextGen Cassava project to be applied in Tanzania and the SweetGains project in Mozambique. Part of the results from the studies have been synthesised and published in the 11 publications in the same special issue. It is expected that the results from profiling the preferences of value chain actors with their gender-differentiated trait and product preferences will support breeding programmes to improve adoption of new varieties and impact on food and income security in SSA.