Water activity and moisture content are the most valuable characteristics for assessing the stability of dried foods. The aim of this work was to evaluate if a desorption isotherm model could be used to describe the relationship between the water activity and moisture content in the product during osmotic dehydration. This model can lead to a better understanding of how water activity of a product can be reduced during osmotic dehydration. The Guggenheim, Anderson and De Boer (GAB) model was chosen because it has been proven to best fit the desorption and adsorption of foods over a large range of water activities. The studied material was apple pieces, and the osmotic medium with a water activity of 0.939 was prepared with sucrose. The osmotic dehydration process was studied by collecting moisture content and water activity data at different temperatures and times. The model was shown to fit well the experimental points at temperatures 25, 45 and 55 °C. At 65 °C, however, the model is satisfactory if aw is below 0.970 but not above. The effect of temperature can be expressed on the C-parameter of the GAB model. © 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.