Vibrational Spectroscopy Coupled to a Multivariate Analysis Tiered Approach for Argentinean Honey Provenance Confirmation

DAMIANI, TITO; ALONSO-SALCES, ROSA M.; AUBONE, INÉS; BAETEN, VINCENT; ARNOULD, QUENTIN; DALL'ASTA, CHIARA; FUSELLI, SANDRA R.; FERNÁNDEZ PIERNA, JUAN ANTONIO

Foods

MDPI

Lugar: Basilea; Año: 2020 vol. 9

In the present work, the provenance discrimination of Argentinian honeys was used as casestudy to compare the capabilities of three spectroscopic techniques as fast screening platforms for honeyauthentication purposes. Multifloral honeys were collected among three main honey-producingregions of Argentina over four harvesting seasons. Each sample was fingerprinted by FT-MIR,NIR and FT-Raman spectroscopy. The spectroscopic platforms were compared on the basis ofthe classification performance achieved under a supervised chemometric approach. Furthermore,low- mid- and high-level data fusion were attempted in order to enhance the classification results.Finally, the best-performing solution underwent to SIMCA modelling with the purpose of reproducinga food authentication scenario. All the developed classification models underwent to a ?year-by-year?validation strategy, enabling a sound assessment of their long-term robustness and excluding anyissue of model overfitting. Excellent classification scores were achieved by all the technologiesand nearly perfect classification was provided by FT-MIR. All the data fusion strategies providedsatisfying outcomes, with the mid- and high-level approaches outperforming the low-level datafusion. However, no significant advantage over the FT-MIR alone was obtained. SIMCA modellingof FT-MIR data produced highly sensitive and specific models and an overall prediction abilityimprovement was achieved when more harvesting seasons were used for the model calibration (86.7%sensitivity and 91.1% specificity). The results obtained in the present work suggested the majorpotential of FT-MIR for fingerprinting-based honey authentication and demonstrated that accuracylevels that may be commercially useful can be reached. On the other hand, the combination ofmultiple vibrational spectroscopic fingerprints represents a choice that should be carefully evaluatedfrom a cost/benefit standpoint within the industrial context.