The Use of Visible and near Infrared Spectroscopy to Classify the Floral Origin of Honey Samples Produced in Uruguay

Abstract

This study reports the use of visible (vis) and near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy as a tool to classify honey samples from Uruguay, according to their floral origin. Classification models were developed using principal component analysis, discriminant partial least squares (DPLS) regression and linear discriminant analysis (LDA). Honey samples ( n = 50) from two floral origins, namely Eucalyptus spp. and pasture, were split randomly into even calibration ( n = 25) and validation sets ( n = 25). Both LDA and DPLS models correctly classified, on average, more than 75% of the honey samples belonging to pasture and more than 85% of the honey samples belonging to Eucalyptus spp. These results showed that vis-NIR might be a suitable and alternative method that can easily be implemented by both the industry and retailers to classify samples according their floral origin. Vis-NIR analysis requires little sample preparation and is rapid. However, the relatively limited number of samples involved in the present work led us to be cautious in terms of extrapolating the results of this work to other floral types.