Authentication of the Botanical and Geographical Origin of Honey by Front-Face Fluorescence Spectroscopy

• Published in: Journal of agricultural and food chemistry 2006-09, Vol.54 (18), p.6858-6866
• Main Authors: Ruoff, Kaspar, Luginbühl, Werner, Künzli, Raphael, Bogdanov, Stefan, Bosset, Jacques Olivier, von der Ohe, Katharina, von der Ohe, Werner, Amadò, Renato
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: adulterated products; Animals; Bees - physiology; Biological and medical sciences; botanical origin; Confectionery products and chocolate industries, honey; Flowers; fluorescence emission spectroscopy; food composition; Food Contamination - analysis; Food industries; front-face fluorescence spectroscopy; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects; honey; Honey - analysis; Honey - classification; Methods of analysis, processing and quality control, regulation, standards; plants; pollen; polyfloral honey; product authenticity; provenance; Reproducibility of Results; Spectrometry, Fluorescence - methods; unifloral honey
• ISSN: 0021-8561; 1520-5118
• DOI: 10.1021/jf060697t

Front-face fluorescence spectroscopy, directly applied on honey samples, was used for the authentication of 11 unifloral and polyfloral honey types (n = 371 samples) previously classified using traditional methods such as chemical, pollen, and sensory analysis. Excitation spectra (220−400 nm) were recorded with the emission measured at 420 nm. In addition, emission spectra were recorded between 290 and 500 nm (excitation at 270 nm) as well as between 330 and 550 nm (excitation at 310 nm). A total of four different spectral data sets were considered for data analysis. Chemometric evaluation of the spectra included principal component analysis and linear discriminant analysis; the error rates of the discriminant models were calculated by using Bayes' theorem. They ranged from