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

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.