Pectins are important gelling and thickening agents for the food industry. They are extracted mainly from citrus fruits and apples but also from different other plant materials such as sunflower, sugar beet or other sources. The industrial production has a long tradition and the main steps like extraction or precipitation are well-known. 1 Nevertheless, the parameters and details of the treatments, such as temperatures, pH or drying procedure, can vary considerably between different pectin producing companies and even within one company. Moreover, the pectin sources are biological materials with seasonal and local variations, and it is necessary but not always completely possible for the pectin producers to adapt the technology to the raw material. Pectin molecules are long mainly galacturonic acid backbones with side chains of neutral sugars. The galacturonic acid molecules are partly methoxylated and the pectins are divided into high-methoxylated (HMP) or low-methoxylated (LMP) with degree of methoxylation (DM) above or below 50 %, respectively. 1,2,3 LMP are mostly made from HMP by chemical demethoxylation procedures with acidic or alkaline conditions; 1 the resulting pectins are used for different food products. In previous experiments, pectin modifications such as demethoxylation and amidation were made from HM-pectin of one company in laboratory scale. It was found that the material properties and thermal degradation behaviour of the resulting LMP varied considerably in dependence on their molecular parameters and preparation conditions. 4,5 Laboratory preparation and industrial production differ, however, not only with respect to the raw material properties and amount of processed material but also in the applied equipment and resulting technological conditions. The question is, whether results of model pectins can be transferred to industrially produced materials from different companies. Therefore, commercial citrus pectins from three different companies were examined in detail and compared with respect to their molecular and material properties and especially their gelling behaviour. These parameters are relevant for practical pectin application and their interactions and inter-dependencies can give valuable information for pectin producing as well as using companies. 2 MATERIALS AND METHODS 2.1 Materials All samples were commercial pectins, kindly provided from three pectin companies. For data protection reasons they are named with 1, 2 and 3, and the pectins are labelled with 1A, 1B, etc. The detailed examined parameters are given in Table 1.