**4. Conclusions**

The application of osmodehydration as a drying pre-treatment decreased the drying time and shrinkage of the product compared with the fresh product. Increasing the osmotic agent (sucrose solution) concentration increased product shrinkage during the osmodehydration process.

The models used allowed describing the drying kinetics. Page's model was the best fit, followed by Weibull model and Henderson and Pabis model. These models are a great alternative to analyze the mass transfer rate. However, the Newton model was not adequate to describe drying processes with mass transfer rate. In the case of the diffusive model, it is required to characterize the real dimensions of the product during the whole process to achieve a better fit.
