title: Authentication of the botanical and geographical origin of honey by mid-infrared spectroscopy.
abstract: The potential of Fourier transform mid-infrared spectroscopy (FT-MIR) using an attenuated total reflectance (ATR) cell was evaluated for the authentication of 11 unifloral (acacia, alpine rose, chestnut, dandelion, heather, lime, rape, fir honeydew, metcalfa honeydew, oak honeydew) and polyfloral honey types (n = 411 samples) previously classified with traditional methods such as chemical, pollen, and sensory analysis. Chemometric evaluation of the spectra was carried out by applying principal component analysis and linear discriminant analysis, the error rates of the discriminant models being calculated by using Bayes' theorem. The error rates ranged from <0.1% (polyfloral and heather honeys as well as honeydew honeys from metcalfa, oak, and fir) to 8.3% (alpine rose honey) in both jackknife classification and validation, depending on the honey type considered. This study indicates that ATR-MIR spectroscopy is a valuable tool for the authentication of the botanical origin and quality control and may also be useful for the determination of the geographical origin of honey.
authors.affiliation: Swiss Bee Research Centre/Agroscope Liebefeld-Posieux, Schwarzenburgstrasse 161, CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland. kaspar.ruoff@inframiel.ch
authors.forename: Kaspar
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ruoff
authors.forename: Werner
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Luginbühl
authors.forename: Raphael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Künzli
authors.forename: María Teresa
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Iglesias
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bogdanov
authors.forename: Jacques Olivier
authors.initials: JO
authors.lastname: Bosset
authors.forename: Katharina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: von der Ohe
authors.forename: Werner
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: von der Ohe
authors.forename: Renato
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Amado
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D035264:Flowers; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000032:analysis; D006722:Honey / Q000032:analysis* / Q000145:classification*; D010944:Plants; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D017550:Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared / Q000379:methods*