Application of emission – excitation matrices in parallel with factor analysis with other chemometric techniques for honey classification

Honey authentication and adulteration detection using emission - excitation spectra combined with chemometrics

The aim of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of emission-excitation matrices for honey authentication and adulteration detection. For this purpose, 4 types of authentic honeys (tilia, sunflower, acacia and rape) and samples adulterated with different adulteration agents (agave, maple, inverted sugar, corn and rice in different percentages - 5%, 10% and 20%) were analysed. Each honey type and each adulteration agent exhibit unique emission-excitation spectra that can be used for the classification according to the botanical origin and for the detection of adulteration. The principal component analysis clearly separated the rape, sunflower and acacia honeys. The partial least squares - discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) and support vector machines (SVM) were used in a binary mode to separate the authentic honeys from the adulterated ones, and the SVM proved to separate much better than PLS-DA.

Insight into the Recent Application of Chemometrics in Quality Analysis and Characterization of Bee Honey during Processing and Storage

The application of chemometrics, a widely used science in food studies (and not only food studies) has begun to increase in importance with chemometrics being a very powerful tool in analyzing large numbers of results. In the case of honey, chemometrics is usually used for assessing honey authenticity and quality control, combined with well-established analytical methods. Research related to investigation of the quality changes in honey due to modifications after processing and storage is rare, with a visibly increasing tendency in the last decade (and concentrated on investigating novel methods to preserve the honey quality, such as ultrasound or high-pressure treatment). This review presents the evolution in the last few years in using chemometrics in analyzing honey quality during processing and storage. The advantages of using chemometrics in assessing honey quality during storage and processing are presented, together with the main characteristics of some well-known chemometric methods. Chemometrics prove to be a successful tool to differentiate honey samples based on changes of characteristics during storage and processing.