Abstract
The objective of the study was to check the authenticity of Hungarian honey using physicochemical analysis, near infrared spectroscopy, and melissopalynology. In the study, 87 samples from different botanical origins such as acacia, bastard indigo, rape, sunflower, linden, honeydew, milkweed, and sweet chestnut were collected. The samples were analyzed by physicochemical methods (pH, electrical conductivity, and moisture), melissopalynology (300 pollen grains counted), and near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS:740–1700 nm). During the evaluation of the data PCA-LDA models were built for the classification of different botanical and geographical origins, using the methods separately, and in combination (low-level data fusion). PC number optimization and external validation were applied for all the models. Botanical origin classification models were >90% and >55% accurate in the case of the pollen and NIR methods. Improved results were obtained with the combination of the physicochemical, melissopalynology, and NIRS techniques, which provided >99% and >81% accuracy for botanical and geographical origin classification models, respectively. The combination of these methods could be a promising tool for origin identification of honey.
Highlights
Honey is a natural food and sweetener produced by honeybees (Apis mellifera) from the nectar and secretions of living parts of the plans, or from excretions of sucking insect living on trees, this latter being called honeydew [1,2]
The requirement of the Hungarian norm for unifloral honeys was not met in the case of some acacia samples as the quantity of Robinia pseudoacacia pollen was lower than 15% [13]
Principal component analysis of the honey samples (Figure 2) using the pollen data showed a separation tendency according to the different unifloral types
Summary
Honey is a natural food and sweetener produced by honeybees (Apis mellifera) from the nectar and secretions of living parts of the plans, or from excretions of sucking insect living on trees, this latter being called honeydew [1,2] It is a source of several nutrients, such as sugars, organic acids, enzymes, minerals, vitamins, amino acids [3]. Origin identification of the honey is not easy as there is no reference honey [3,6] for the individual unifloral types due to their variability affected by different factors. These factors are processing technology, storage conditions, and the geographical origin (soil, climate, surrounding flora) [7]. The identification of the botanical origin according to the classical approach consists of three main sections: sensory analysis, determination of physicochemical properties, and melissopalynological analysis [8]
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