Honey-Profiling (NMR)

Honey has become a prime target for economically motivated adulteration, being in high demand, and short supply. This may involve the addition of cheap-to-produce sugar syrups to increase the volume of honey or claiming a false geographic origin or floral source to elevate the retail value.

This type of food fraud has historically been difficult to detect, but the multi-marker and non-targeted analytical capability of NMR has provided an effective solution. The value of NMR analysis of honey is further elevated by the establishment of the Honey Profiling Consortium,  a collaboration between Bruker BioSpin and testing labs.

Through this collaboration, a comprehensive database of reference honeys has been built and is routinely updated with new variants for botanical and geographical verification. This up-to-date reference library allows Honey-Profiling to detect several hundred compounds in a sample simultaneously to reliably categorize the honey. Analysis takes 20 minutes, compared to current methods that can take up to 2 days.

• Comprehensive screening of authenticity in one method.
• „Analysis takes 20 minutes where combination of other methods require approximately 2 days.
• Cost per sample significantly lower than combining other methods to get similar data.
• Fully automated method, no NMR expertise is required.
• Sophisticated detection of the presence of exogeneous sugars by many markers, independent of the sugar source (sugar cane, maize, rice, beet,wheat, etc..).
• Country of origin and botanical variety verification relies on the chemical composition of the honey.
• The comprehensive and robust database of more than 18000 reference honeys, covering more than 50 geographical origins and 100 botanical varieties was developed in partnership with QSI, Alnumed & Famille Michaud.
• ISO17025 accreditation. The Bruker BAS laboratory is accredited for HoneyProfiling 2.0, guaranteeing extensive validation of all the underlying tests.
   

Due to its unique “all-in-one“ capabilities, high-resolution 1H-NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) spectroscopy, combined with multivariate statistical chemometrics, is a powerful tool for authenticity and quality of honey. Honey-Profiling can detect several hundred compounds in a honey sample simultaneously, which are used to characterize
the honey through a comprehensive database of reference honeys. The database is routinely updated with new variants for botanical and geographical verification, providing a reliable, up-to-date, reference library.

With Honey-Profiling 2.0 You Can:

• Detect exogenous sugars in any type of honey
• Verify country of origin of honeys
• Verify botanical variety of monofloral honeys
• Analyze composition as well as quality and freshness parameters
• Verify EU-regulated parameters (Council Directive 2001/110/EC)
  - Glucose + fructose
  - Sucrose
  - 5-HMF
• Detect atypical samples by non-targeted screening