Drying is one of the oldest methods for food preservation that removes the water from fruit and makes it available for consumption throughout the year. Dried fruits can be produced by small- and large-scale processors, which makes them a very popular food among consumers and food manufacturers. The most frequent uses of drying technology include osmotic dehydration, vacuum drying, freeze-drying and different combinations of other drying technologies. However, drying may provoke undesirable changes with respect to physiochemical, sensory, nutritional and microbiological quality. Drying process energy efficiency and the quality of dried fruits are crucial factors in fruit drying. Recently, innovative technologies such as ultrasound, pulsed electric field and high pressure may be used as a pretreatment or in combination with traditional drying technologies for process intensification. This could result in quality improvements of dried fruits and enhanced efficiency and capacity of the production process, with a positive impact on environmental and economic benefits.

Insect-containing products are gaining more space in the market. Bakery products are one of the most promising since the added ground insects can enhance not only the nutritional quality of the dough, but technological parameters and sensory properties of the final products. In the present research, different amounts of ground Acheta domesticus (house cricket) were used to produce oat biscuits. Colour, hardness, and total titratable acidity (TTA) values were measured as well as a consumer sensory test was completed using the check-all-that-apply (CATA) method. An estimation of nutrient composition of the samples revealed that, according to the European Union’s Regulation No. 1924/2006, the products with 10 and 15 g/100 g cricket enrichment (CP10 and CP15, respectively) can be labelled as protein sources. Results of the colour, TTA, and texture measurements showed that even small amounts of the cricket powder darkened the colour of the samples and increased their acidity, but did not influence the texture significantly. Among product-related check all that apply (CATA) attributes, fatty and cheesy flavour showed a significant positive effect on overall liking (OAL). On the other hand, burnt flavour and brown colour significantly decreased OAL. OAL values showed that consumers preferred the control product (CP0) and the product with 5 g/100 g cricket enrichment (CP5) samples over CP10 and rejected CP15.

Choosing the proper hierarchical clustering algorithm and number of clusters is always a key question in consumer sensory projects. In many cases, researchers do not publish any reason why it was chosen a given distance measure and linkage rule along with cluster numbers. The reason behind this could be that different cluster validation and comparison techniques give contradictory results in most cases. A complex evaluation to define the proper clustering might be time-consuming and tedious. The paper introduces the clustering of three sensory data sets using different distance metrics and linkage rules for different numbers of clusters. The results of the validation methods deviate, suggesting that clustering depends heavily on the data set in question. Although Euclidean distance, Ward's method seems a safe choice, testing, and validation of different clustering combinations is strongly suggested.