Strawberry nectar colour stability and aroma: influence of cultivar, harvest time and ripening stage

Project HiStabJuice

The HiStabJuice project evaluates various factors influencing colour stability in fruit juices, focussing on raw materials and preservation techniques, as well as associated effects, deleterious to the health benefits of the final products.

Contextual information

Strawberry purees were analysed using:

GC-FID to measure furaneol and mesifuran.

GC-MS to measure 12 aroma compounds (including esters, C6 compounds, and lactones).

Purees came from 12 cultivars, from two countries, at different ripening stages and harvest times.

Purees were processed into nectar, and colour stability and aroma were monitored over 12 weeks.

Both colour and aroma were strongly influenced by the strawberry cultivar.

Nectars made from overripe strawberries had:

Higher colour stability.

Higher concentrations of aroma compounds.

Some cultivars were more influenced by harvest time than by ripening stage.

Strawberries from Poland showed smaller differences between ripening stages compared to those from Austria.

Significant correlations were found:

Furaneol, hexanal, γ-decalactone, and γ-dodecalactone concentrations correlated with good colour after 12 weeks.

Only γ-decalactone concentration correlated with higher colour stability, although this might be due to cultivar effects.

Files

All data are presented as Excel file.

Funding

This project has received funding by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 956257. This research was also funded in part by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [I6939].