High-Performance Anion Exchange Chromatography with Pulsed Amperometric Detection (HPAEC-PAD) and Chemometrics for Geographical and Floral Authentication of Honeys from Southern Italy (Calabria region)

High-performance anion exchange chromatography with pulsed amperometric detection (HPAEC-PAD) combined with chemometric analysis was developed to describe, for the first time, the sugar profile of sixty-one honeys of different botanical origin produced in southern Italy (Calabria Region). The principal component and linear discriminant analysis used to describe the variability of sugar data were able to discriminate the honeys according to their botanical origin with a correlation index higher than 90%. For the purpose of the robustness of the conclusions of this study, the analytical advantages of the HPAEC-PAD method have been statistically demonstrated compared to the official Italian HPLC-RI method (Refractive Index detection). Finally, as the characterization of the floral and geographical origin of honey became an important issue due to high consumer demand, 13 acacia honeys originating from Europe and China were studied by using the same method. By chemometric method it was possible to discriminate the different geographical origin with an index of 100%. All results proved the possibility to identify the sugar profile obtained by HPAEC-PAD combined with a robust statistical analysis, as a tool of authentication.