Obtaining fundamental and mechanistic insight into browning reaction pathways in fruit-based food systems: an integrated fingerprinting and kinetics approach.

Consuming fruits is an important part of a healthy life-style. Fruits can be freshly consumed or can be processed into juices, jams and canned fruits. One of the common quality losses during processing and storage of fruit-based products is degradation of the commercially valuable color. Since an attractive color is one of the main characteristics that play an important role in product acceptability, browning is a quality handicap. Color degradation could result from the combined effect of fading of natural pigments (e.g., carotenoids and anthocyanins) and formation of brownish compounds. For decades already, food scientists have been studying chemical reactions causing browning. Nevertheless, browning is still a major problem in fruit-based products. Most studies followed a targeted approach, where only a single reaction intermediate or end product or a reaction pathways is monitored. Nevertheless, since the impact of processing and storage on food systems result from an interplay of a complex reaction networks, following a targeted approach could be a biased approach. Therefore, there is a need for studies investigating the potential of non-targeted and more hypothesis-free approaches. Thus, the present project proposal aims at systematic integration of new analytical and data analysis techniques in order to obtain a fundamental insight into browning reactions induced by processing and storage as a first step towards process design, control and optimization.