ACTIVITY 6

This task involves the characterization of the fresh, dehydrated products and the novel foods (enriched bread, crackers and cookies). Model food products (bread, crackers and cookies) will also be evaluated for sensory profiles. Samples will be stored at different temperatures and monitored to assess actual shelf life.

In terms of physical properties will be assessed different attributes related to texture, such as hardness, cohesiveness, adhesiveness, chewiness, elasticity and resistance of the tissues.

In parallel, measurements of dried plants/berries colours will be made, a key aspect when it comes to drying since the drying process develop compounds that print darker colours when compared with the fresh products, and this may constitute an unpleasant look. The nutritional, physical and sensorial characterization will be done in ESAC/IPC.

The present project seeks to innovate by offering novel foods to the food market, the sensory component is far more important. Thus, the different novel products will be evaluated by trained and not trained panellists who will score them (colour, flavour and texture) using a hedonic scale. These sensorial parameters will be chosen as a guide to test the changes occurring during storage.

The use of different sensory tests to evaluate the acceptance of new products and/or to find possible differences among samples is crucial and an approach that can produce relevant results. By this, different sensory tests of the novel foods developed under this work will be conducted at ESAC/IPC.