Color of orange juices in relation to their carotenoid contents as assessed from different spectroscopic data

► The instrumental measurement of orange juice color can be harnessed for the rapid estimation health-promoting carotenoids. ► In this work we compared different spectroscopic data that can be used for that purpose (reflectance, absorption and Kubelka-Munk spectra). ► The best correlations were observed in the case of the CIELAB coordinate a*. ► We observed that K/S is the Kubelka-Munk parameter best correlated with the carotenoid content of the orange juices surveyed. ► This parameter has the advantage of also providing information on the absorption and scattering properties of the juices.