Abstract
The chemical composition of foods is tightly regulated by multiple genotypic and agronomic factors, which can thus serve as potential descriptors for traceability and authentication purposes. In the present work, we performed a multi-chemical characterization of strawberry fruits from five varieties (Aromas, Camarosa, Diamante, Medina, and Ventana) grown in two cultivation systems (open/closed soilless systems) during two consecutive campaigns with different climatic conditions (rainfall and temperature). For this purpose, we analyzed multiple components closely related to the sensory and health characteristics of strawberry, including sugars, organic acids, phenolic compounds, and essential and non-essential mineral elements, and various complementary statistical approaches were applied for selecting chemical descriptors of cultivar and agronomic conditions. Anthocyanins, phenolic acids, sucrose, and malic acid were found to be the most discriminant variables among cultivars, while climatic conditions and the cultivation system were behind changes in polyphenol contents. These results thus demonstrate the utility of combining multi-chemical profiling approaches with advanced chemometric tools in food traceability research.
Highlights
The composition of foods, in terms of nutrients, bioactive compounds, and other components, is tightly regulated by multiple factors, such as the genotype, geographical origin, environmental factors, and agronomic conditions
Sugars and organic acids were analyzed using an Agilent 110 series high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) system coupled to ultraviolet (UV) and refractive index (RI) detectors (Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara, CA, USA), following the methodology previously described [7]
Soluble sugars identified and quantified in strawberry fruits were fructose, glucose, and sucrose; monosaccharides were the major species in all varieties, except for “Camarosa”, which showed higher sucrose contents
Summary
The composition of foods, in terms of nutrients, bioactive compounds, and other components, is tightly regulated by multiple factors, such as the genotype, geographical origin, environmental factors, and agronomic conditions This influences the sensory, nutritional, and nutraceutical properties of food products, which makes the implementation of quality control strategies mandatory to ensure their authenticity and traceability. We employed a multi-targeted profiling approach to characterize the chemical composition of strawberry, considering multiple compounds related to sensory and health characteristics of this berry fruit, including sugars, organic acids, polyphenols, and mineral elements. This multi-chemical profile was investigated as a potential tool for authentication and traceability purposes, with the aim of discriminating strawberry varieties grown under different climatic and agronomic conditions. Complementary pattern recognition procedures were employed, including principal component analysis (PCA), linear discriminant analysis (LDA), soft independent model class analogy (SIMCA), and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA)
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