A growing demand for organic foods is driven by consumers' perception that they are more nutritious. However, while there is a number of scientific studies showing some superior qualities of organically grown fruit and vegetables, including, i.e., higher content of phenolics, some vitamins and antioxidant activity, scientific research looking into the quality of processed organic products is very limited. At the same time the consumption of processed, convenient foods, with a long shelf-life, is rapidly increasing all over the world. Among the processed fruit-based products, dried fruits are recognized by consumers as one of the best snacks, highly nutritious and containing a large amount of fibre. In the presented experiment, four types of organic and conventionally produced dried fruits were examined: Apricots, apple rings, cranberries, and prunes. The concentrations of polyphenols (in all products) and carotenoids (in apricots) were measured using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The study confirms that dry fruits can be undoubtedly considered as a rich source of polyphenols, however, a large variation in the concentrations of these compounds among different brands of products was also pointed: 219.03 ± 3.90-296.96 ± 2.86 mg 100 g-1 in dried apricots, 95.24 ± 15.12-627.71 ± 48.64 mg 100 g-1 in dried apple rings, 14.64 ± 0.43-203.09 ± 7.96 mg 100 g-1 in dried cranberries, and 134.65 ± 12.27-422.44 ± 9.00 mg 100 g-1 in prunes. Carotenoids concentrations in dried apricots ranged from 2.72 ± 0.31 to 17.49 ± 0.17 µg g-1. Among the tested dried fruits, only in the case of apricots organic products were characterized by the higher contents of phenolics and carotenoids compared to the conventional brands. In the case of other products there was either no consistent significant production system effect, or the concentrations of the analyzed phenolic compounds were higher in conventional products.
Keywords: basket study; carotenoids; conventional; dry fruits; organic; polyphenols.