The shrinkage and increase in density resulting from an osmotic pretreatment were studied for two varieties of strawberries, Honeoye and Dania. Aqueous sucrose solutions (20-85% w/w) and granulated sucrose Mere used as the osmotic media. A simplified model is presented where the shrinkage factor was con-elated to changes in weight. Solids uptake was found to be of great importance for determining the final volume of the strawberries. The two varieties of strawberry correlated well to the proposed model with a correlation coefficient of r(2) = 0.8995 for the Honeoye and of r(2) = 0.9465 for the Dania. Pretreatment in a 60% (w/w) sucrose solution gave the best result and resulted in an increased density combined with a small decrease in volume. The use of granulated sucrose resulted in the greatest shrinkage. Subsequent thermal processing did not notably change the volume of the pretreated strawberries.