Abstract
The price of honey, as a highly consumed natural product, depends on its botanical source and its production environment, causing honey to be vulnerable to adulteration through mislabeling and inappropriate, fraudulent production. In this study, a fast and simple approach is proposed to tackle this issue through non-target one dimensional zg30 and noesypr1d 1H NMR fingerprint analysis, in combination with multivariate data analysis. Results suggest that composition differences in sugars, amino acids, and carboxylic acid were sufficient to discriminate between the tested honey of Maltese origin and that of non-local origin. Indeed, all chemometric models based on noesypr1d analysis of the whole fraction honey showed better prediction in geographical discrimination. The possibility of discrimination was further investigated through analysis of the honey’s phenolic extract composition. The partial least squares models were deemed unsuccessful to discriminate, however, some of the linear discriminant analysis models achieved a prediction accuracy of 100%. Lastly, the best performing models of both the whole fraction and the phenolic extracts were tested on five samples of unknown geographic for market surveillance, which attained a high agreement within the models. Thus, suggesting the use of non-target 1H NMR coupled with the multivariate-data analysis and machine learning as a potential alternative to the current time-consuming analytical methods.
Highlights
According to the European Union (EU) legislation, honey is defined as “the natural sweet substance produced by Apis mellifera
A general whole fraction spectrum and the main chemical signals identified are displayed in Figure 3 and Table 1 respectively while an overlay of the general phenolic extract spectrum for both local and non-local origin is provided in the supplementary (Figure S1)
An overlay of the zg30 and noesypr1d pretreated spectra is provided in the supplementary (Figure S2), highlighting the difference in the noise to signal ratio between the two types of pulse programs
Summary
According to the European Union (EU) legislation, honey is defined as “the natural sweet substance produced by Apis mellifera. Honey consists essentially of different sugars, predominantly fructose and glucose, as well as other substances such as organic acids, enzymes, and solid particles derived from the honey collection” [1]. Of the dry weight [2] with fructose (38%) and a smaller portion of glucose (31%) as the major sugar component among the 22 different sugar present in the honey composition [3]. A range of amino acids are present as a minor component, constituting mainly proline (80–90% abundancy) and other free amino acids, including glutamic acid, alanine, and tyrosine [4]. Honey authentication became a longtime concern, which manifested for the need to determine the
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