Romanian honey authentication based on physico-chemical parameters and chemometrics

The aim of this study was to determine the physico-chemical parameters [glucose, fructose and sucrose content, pH, moisture content, aw, refraction index, Brix concentration, free acidity, ash content, electrical conductivity, colour parameters (L*, a*, b*, chroma, hue angle, yellow index)] of five different honey types from Romania. The honey types were: acacia, sunflower, tilia, honeydew and polyfloral. For this study 50 samples of honey were used. The pH ranged between 3.88 and 6.39, aw ranged between 0.476 and 0.603, free acidity 3.40–37.10, moisture content 14.44–19.80%, electrical conductivity ranged between 109.9 and 1276.8 µS/cm, ash content 0.05–0.63%, L* 19.60–48.08, a* −1.96 to 7.68, b* 4.16–18.24, chroma 6.53–18.32, hue angle −13.44 to 17.01, yellow index 21.89–70.20, fructose content 33.64–47.31%, glucose 22.06–38.25%, sucrose 0–2.71%, and fructose and glucose contents sum 66.62–79.94%. The authentication of honeys was made using the Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) and Principal component analysis (PCA). According to the LDA, 94.00% of the honey was correctly classified using these physico-chemical parameters.