Vitamin C content and sensorial properties have been evaluated in air-dried carrots previously subjected
to different ultrasound (US) or conventional blanching pretreatments. In addition, mass spectral fingerprints
obtained by the Headspace ChemSensor System have been evaluated for the first time for
classification of carrots according to their processing. Conventional blanching treatments at high
temperature gave rise to carrots with retention of vitamin C in the range 37.5–85%, whereas carrots
blanched conventionally at 60 C and by US-probe at temperatures up to 60 and 70 C showed vitamin
C retention values lower than 4%. Regarding sensorial analysis of rehydrated carrots, US-pretreated samples
presented acceptable quality, and no statistically significant differences with respect to conventionally
blanched carrots, were detected. In spite of this, differentiation of samples processed under
comparable intensity conditions and/or with similar composition was possible from their mass spectral
fingerprints after chemometric data analysis.