Osmotic treatment, also known as osmotic dehydration or dewatering impregnation soaking, is a simple operation used in various traditional preserving methods (eg salting of meat and fish, and candying of fruit). Currently, renewed attention is being paid to osmotic treatment, not as a preserving method, but as a tool for obtaining intermediate and end-products of improved quality. Achievements to date include the collection and evaluation of mass transfer models and kinetic data, and more than 600 references have been collected and evaluated. In the area of combined processes osmotically treated products were processed by convective drying, freezing, osmo-dehydro-freezing (air drying followed by freezing), pasteurization, microwave drying, and smoking. Studies have been carried out on fruit (strawberry, apricot, apple, peach, kiwi), vegetables (carrots, potato), mushrooms, fish (black cod, salmon, squid), and on venison. Osmotically treated raw materials, and final products have been characterized with respect to chemical composition, physiochemical and physical properties, and the following were evaluated: use of binary and multi-component solutions of different osmo-active solutes; effect of temperature, pressure, solution composition and concentration, sample size and shape on the characteristics of the osmotically treated products; nutritional/sensory quality, storage stability of products from different combined methods; possible relationships between modifications of the initial material and protective or stabilising characteristics observed in the final products. The chemico-physical modifications of osmotic solutions (solution management) after several osmotic cycles have been studied and preliminary tests have shown that it is possible to control the microbial contamination of the solutions, thereby facilitating re-use.