Storage of walnut kernels in light and at room temperature, as is common practice, is detrimentalto their sensory quality and shelf life. This study demonstrates that Vis/NIR spectroscopy, incombination with multivariate data analysis (chemometrics), is a most capable rapid method formonitoring the overall quality deterioration of walnut kernels. Spectral predictions of the sensoryattributes nutty and rancid tastes by partial least-squares regression (PLSR) resulted in correlations(
r2) of 0.77 and 0.86, respectively, whereas with PLSR prediction of the chemical parameter hexanalcontent a correlation (
r2) of 0.72 was obtained. The study further establishes that storage in lightresults in pronounced oxidative changes, especially in walnuts stored at 21
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C, whereas dark storageat 5
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C results in walnuts without any trace of rancid taste during 25 weeks of storage at acceleratedstorage conditions (50% oxygen).Keywords: Walnuts (
Juglans regia L.); sensory evaluation; lipid oxidation; light; temperature;NIR; Vis; PCA; PLSR