ABSTRACT
The ultimate success for a food product is its quality perceived by the consumers at the time of consumption. One poor experience by a consumer translates to a huge loss of consumer confidence and acceptability of the product not only by that consumer alone but also by his friends. The unique characteristics of breaded fried foods offer challenges in objective quality measurements that are related to sensory qualities. Often times, the food service industry also has to characterize the changes in quality during storage under a heat lamp and large-scale industries manufacturing partially fried foods have to characterize the breading pickup, yield, and storage under frozen conditions. This chapter describes the methods that are being used by the industry for characterizing breaded fried food quality and discusses some recent developments in the rapid measurement of product quality.
