Assessment of geographical origin of honey by chemometrics

Abstract

The assessment of geographical origin of honey represents high interest around the world, because is related to the authenticity analysis of raw materials and labeled products. The cost of honey in the international market is strongly associated to the geographical origin, so is very important to find the newest and more trustworthy methods to determine geographical provenance. On the other hand, chemometric includes statistical tools which have been successfully used to determine the geographical origin of several foods, inlcuding honey samples. The geographical classification of honey can be obtained by means of the combination of chemometrics with different analytical methods to analyze both organic and inorganic compounds, which can include major, minor and trace elements, amino acids profile or other components. For that, this chapter covers the last reported chemometric methods used to classify honey according to geographical origin, as well as the description of the analytical methods used as matrix data.