Comparative quality analysis of romanian traditional and hand-made jams versus industrial ones

This study aims to:

evaluate the quality of Romanian traditional and hand-made jams versus industrial one

understand which components of the quality bring a contribution to the local fame of traditional and hand-made “superior quality” products.

provide a practical example of a tool useful for food companies in positioning their product, from the quality point of view, on Romanian market.

Components considered for the complex quality of jams were:

Hygienic quality – determined by microbiological analysis

Packaging and labeling quality – determined by visual evaluation and degree of compliance to labeling law

Nutritional properties – evaluated as concentration of fruit in final product / 10

Sensorial quality -assessed by a team of 4 evaluators

Health preserving quality – evaluated according to the number of additives used.

Nutritional quality:

For approximately maintaining the scale we evaluated the nutritional quality as being concentration of fruit (stated on the label) divided by 10.

All jams where the concentration was not declared on the label were assigned the value 1.

Health preserving quality:

Fewer additives were used, more points were obtained by the jam.