Aroma and quality of breads baked from old and modern wheat varieties and their prediction from genomic and flour-based metabolite profiles.

Bread aroma is the principal characteristic perceived by the consumer yet it is mostly disregarded in the product chain. The main aim of this study was to evaluate the potential to include bread aroma as a new target criterion into the wheat product chain. The objectives of our study were to (i) quantify the influence of genetic versus environmental factors on the bread aroma and quality characteristics, (ii) evaluate whether bread baked from modern wheat varieties differ in terms of aroma from those baked from old varieties, and (iii) compare genomic and metabolomic approaches for their efficiency to predict bread aroma and quality characteristics in a wheat breeding program.