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Quality assessment of dried organic bell peppers through composition and sensory analysis

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Abstract

A comprehensive quality evaluation was performed on dried sweet bell pepper samples obtained from two years of production, two genotypes and two drying technologies, using one conventional and two organic cropping systems. A total number of 35 quality indexes, comprising non-volatile and volatile flavor compounds and health related compounds were evaluated for their possible role in the flavor of dried bell pepper: the most significant variations in the data analysis due to the year, drying technique, genotype and cropping system resulted in 25, 25, 16 and 10 significant interactions, respectively. The PCA analysis confirmed the main role of drying technique and sampling year. The malic acid for non-volatile compounds, linalool and 2-methoxy-3-isobutylpyrazine for volatiles represent the most relevant chemical indexes significantly correlating with many sensory descriptors scored by panellists, and are, therefore, proposed as quality markers to be carefully monitored for a correct quality evaluation of dried bell pepper.

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Funding

This research was supported by the ERA-NET action “CORE Organic Plus” [Contract no. 618107] in the framework of the “FaVOr-DeNonDe” Project [ID 849].

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Author notes

  1. Dario Paolo

    Present address: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche—Institute for Agricultural Biology and Biotechnology (CNR-IBBA), Via Alfonso Corti 12, 20133, Milan, Italy

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l′Analisi dell′Economia Agraria (CREA)—Centro di Ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni Agroalimentari (CREA-IT), Via G. Venezian 26, 20133, Milan, Italy

    Giulia Bianchi, Roberto Lo Scalzo, Marta Fibiani & Dario Paolo

  2. Dipartimento di Chimica, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via C. Golgi 19, 20133, Milan, Italy

    Marta Vignati

  3. Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l′Analisi dell′Economia Agraria (CREA)—Centro di Ricerca Orticoltura e Florovivaismo (CREA-OF), Via Salaria 1, 63077, Stella di Monsampolo (AP), Italy

    Gabriele Campanelli

  4. Department of Food Science—Food Quality Perception and Society, Aarhus University, AgroFood Park 48, 8200, Aarhus N, Denmark

    Ulla Kidmose

Authors
  1. Giulia Bianchi
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  2. Roberto Lo Scalzo
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  4. Dario Paolo
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Correspondence to Giulia Bianchi.

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Bianchi, G., Lo Scalzo, R., Fibiani, M. et al. Quality assessment of dried organic bell peppers through composition and sensory analysis. Eur Food Res Technol 247, 1883–1897 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00217-021-03757-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00217-021-03757-3

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