FTIR-ATR spectroscopy as a tool for the rapid detection of adulterations in butter cheeses

Abstract This study assessed the potential application of Fourier-Transformed Infrared spectroscopy using Attenuated Total Reflectance (FTIR-ATR) coupled with multivariate approaches to characterize and detect adulterations in butter cheeses (BC) with soybean oil (SO). In general, as the adulterations were performed, there is a decrease in band intensities related to proteins, while for most bands related to lipid, the substitution of butter oil (BO) by SO led to increases in their intensities up to 70% of fraud. The band near 3007 cm −1 was evinced only in adulterated cheeses. Principal component analysis differentiated the samples validating the spectral observations. A partial least squares model allowed the prediction of the percentage of SO added into the samples with low residuals. FTIR-ATR spectroscopy associated with chemometrics showed good performance in the detection of butter cheeses’ adulterations.