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Summary We tested the hypothesis that an optimum method of drying fruit could be designed. The effect of the method used for drying on colour of apple, banana, potato and carrot was investigated for five different methods of drying: conventional, vacuum, microwave, freeze and osmotic drying. Colour characteristics were studied by measuring lightness (L), redness (a) and yellowness (b) using a Hunter Lab chromatometer. The method used to dry the material was found to significantly affect the three colour parameters. The changes in redness (a) and yellowness (b) were found to follow a first order kinetic model. Air‐, vacuum‐ and microwave‐dried materials caused extensive browning in the fruits and vegetables, this was manifested by a significant drop of the L parameter and an increase of the a and b parameters. Osmotically pretreated samples did not brown as much as the untreated samples and the value for lightness (L) decreased only slightly while a and b increased slightly. Freeze drying seems to prevent colour changes, resulting in products with improved colour characteristics.