Marjo Särkkä-Tirkkonen

Quality assessment of baby food made of different pre-processed organic raw materials under industrial processing conditions

The market for processed food is rapidly growing. The industry needs methods for “processing with care” leading to high quality products in order to meet consumers’ expectations. Processing influences the quality of the finished product through various factors. In carrot baby food, these are the raw material, the pre-processing and storage treatments as well as the processing conditions. In this study, a quality assessment was performed on baby food made from different pre-processed raw materials. The experiments were carried out under industrial conditions using fresh, frozen and stored organic carrots as raw material. Statistically significant differences were found for sensory attributes among the three autoclaved puree samples (e.g. overall odour F = 90.72, p < 0.001). Samples processed from frozen carrots show increased moisture content and decrease of several chemical constituents. Biocrystallization identified changes between replications of the cooking. Pre-treatment of raw material has a significant influence on the final quality of the baby food.

Social Capital and Entrepreneurial Behaviour Advancing Innovativeness in Interaction between Small Rural Entrepreneurs and Researchers: A Phenomenographic Study.

ABSTRACT Innovation processes between entrepreneurs and researchers are activated by interaction. Social capital increases the efficiency of action, for example, information dissemination by minimising redundancy. To learn more about how to build and develop social capital assumes that we understand how entrepreneurs behave and what their expectations of interaction with researchers are. The purpose of this study is to increase our understanding of what entrepreneurs want and expect from interaction, how they act and perceive the scope of social capital in interaction. In this study we adopt a theoretical approach that combines social capital and entrepreneurial behaviour. The firms in this study are located in the South Savo region of Finland and operate in food production. As a result of interviews with 15 entrepreneurs, a system of categories was compiled as the phenomenographic method assumes. It became obvious that the key dynamics of the cooperation between entrepreneurs and researchers is embedded in a common understanding of entrepreneurial behaviour and learning as well as a trust-building process. As a practical implication, we suggest that through adopting specific features of entrepreneurial behaviour and acknowledging the preconditions for building trust researchers could pave the way to innovativeness of rural entrepreneurs. The results of this study could be valuable for research organisations focusing on research cooperation with rural entrepreneurs.