processes Review Effect of Selected Drying Methods and Emerging Drying Intensiﬁcation Technologies on the Quality of Dried Fruit: A Review Milivoj Radojˇ cin 1, *, Ivan Pavkov 1 , Danijela Bursa´ c Kovaˇ cevi´ c 2 , Predrag Putnik 3 , Artur Wiktor 4 , Zoran Stamenkovi´ c 1 , Krstan Kešelj 1 and Attila Gere 5   Citation: Radojˇ cin, M.; Pavkov, I.; Bursa´ c Kovaˇ cevi´ c, D.; Putnik, P.; Wiktor, A.; Stamenkovi´ c, Z.; Kešelj, K.; Gere, A. Effect of Selected Drying Methods and Emerging Drying Intensiﬁcation Technologies on the Quality of Dried Fruit: A Review. Processes 2021, 9, 132. https://doi. org/10.3390/pr9010132 Received: 17 December 2020 Accepted: 6 January 2021 Published: 9 January 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neu- tral with regard to jurisdictional clai- ms in published maps and institutio- nal afﬁliations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Li- censee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and con- ditions of the Creative Commons At- tribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 Faculty of Agriculture, University of Novi Sad, Trg Dositeja Obradovi´ ca 8, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia; ivan.pavkov@polj.uns.ac.rs (I.P.); zoran.stamenkovic@polj.uns.ac.rs (Z.S.); krstan.keselj@polj.uns.ac.rs (K.K.) 2 Faculty of Food Technology and Biotechnology, University of Zagreb, Pierottijeva 6, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia; dbursac@pbf.hr 3 Department of Food Technology, University North, Trg dr. Žarka Dolinara 1, 48000 Koprivnica, Croatia; pputnik@alumni.uconn.edu 4 Department of Food Engineering and Process Management, Faculty of Food Sciences, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Nowoursynowska 159c, 02-776 Warsaw, Poland; artur_wiktor@sggw.edu.pl 5 Institute of Food Technology, Szent István University, Villányi Str. 29-31, H-1118 Budapest, Hungary; gereattilaphd@gmail.com * Correspondence: milivoj.radojcin@polj.uns.ac.rs Abstract: 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. Keywords: processing; drying; fruits; pretreatments; quality; emerging technologies 1. Introduction The term drying usually refers to the operation by which the moisture present in a material evaporates because of heat and matter exchange between the product and the working medium. Fresh fruits have high moisture contents as they are classiﬁed as highly perishable commodities; therefore, storage at refrigerated temperatures and controlled humid conditions is required [1]. Fruits are rich sources of nutrients, including vitamins, minerals, dietary ﬁbers, phenolics, carotenoids, etc., that are useful for human health. Drying is an alternative method for the preservation of the nutritional value of fruits, which increases their relative concentration, extends their shelf life, and minimizes packaging, handling and transportation costs [2]. In addition, drying is an alternative to expensive postharvest management and selling surpluses of fruits on the market. The drying of fruits by conventional methods, such as sun drying or open-air drying, can degrade quality and food safety. Numerous disadvantages of these technologies led to the development of new technologies, such as oven drying, microwaving, vacuuming, as well as infrared, freeze and different hybrid drying, which are being used successfully for different kinds of Processes 2021, 9, 132. https://doi.org/10.3390/pr9010132 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/processes