Authentication of the Botanical and Geographical Origin of Honey by Mid-Infrared Spectroscopy

• Published in: Journal of agricultural and food chemistry Vol. 54; no. 18; pp. 6873 - 6880
• Main Authors: Ruoff, Kaspar, Luginbühl, Werner, Künzli, Raphael, Iglesias, María Teresa, Bogdanov, Stefan, Bosset, Jacques Olivier, von der Ohe, Katharina, von der Ohe, Werner, Amadò, Renato
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Chemical Society 06.09.2006
• Subjects: adulterated products; Analysis of Variance; Biological and medical sciences; botanical origin; Confectionery products and chocolate industries, honey; Discriminant Analysis; Flowers; food composition; Food Contamination - analysis; Food industries; Fourier transform mid-infrared spectroscopy; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects; honey; Honey - analysis; Honey - classification; infrared spectroscopy; Methods of analysis, processing and quality control, regulation, standards; Plants; pollen; polyfloral honey; product authenticity; provenance; Reproducibility of Results; Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared - methods; unifloral honey; Fourier transformation; authenticity; Geographical origin; FT-IR; unifloral; Infrared spectrometry; Honey; polyfloral; botanical origin; Authentication; Quality control; Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy; Adulteration; Chemometrics; ATR
• ISSN: 0021-8561; 1520-5118
• DOI: 10.1021/jf060838r

The potential of Fourier transform mid-infrared spectroscopy (FT-MIR) using an attenuated total reflectance (ATR) cell was evaluated for the authentication of 11 unifloral (acacia, alpine rose, chestnut, dandelion, heather, lime, rape, fir honeydew, metcalfa honeydew, oak honeydew) and polyfloral honey types (n = 411 samples) previously classified with traditional methods such as chemical, pollen, and sensory analysis. Chemometric evaluation of the spectra was carried out by applying principal component analysis and linear discriminant analysis, the error rates of the discriminant models being calculated by using Bayes' theorem. The error rates ranged from <0.1% (polyfloral and heather honeys as well as honeydew honeys from metcalfa, oak, and fir) to 8.3% (alpine rose honey) in both jackknife classification and validation, depending on the honey type considered. This study indicates that ATR-MIR spectroscopy is a valuable tool for the authentication of the botanical origin and quality control and may also be useful for the determination of the geographical origin of honey. Keywords: Honey; unifloral; polyfloral; botanical origin; geographical origin; authenticity; quality control; Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy; FT-IR; ATR; chemometrics