Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Food Chemistry journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodchem Establishing authenticity of honey via comprehensive Romanian honey analysis Elisabeta-Irina Geana ⁎ , Corina Teodora Ciucure National Research & Development Institute for Cryogenics and Isotopic Technologies – ICSI Rm. Valcea, 4th Uzinei Street, 240050 Rm. Valcea, Romania ARTICLEINFO Keywords: Honey authentication Sugar syrups Adulteration Botanical and geographical origins Analytical methods Chemometrics ABSTRACT Assessing the authenticity of honey is a serious problem that has gained much interest internationally because honey has frequently been subject to various fraudulent practices, including mislabelling of botanical and geographical origin and mixing with sugar syrups or honey of lower quality. To protect the health of consumers and avoid competition, which could create an unstable market, con- sumers, beekeepers and regulatory bodies are interested in having reliable analytical methodologies to detect non-compliant honey. This paper gives an overview of the diferent approaches used to assess the authenticity of honey, specifcally by the application of advanced instrumental techniques, including spectrometric, spectroscopic and chromato- graphic methods coupled with chemometric interpretation of the data. Recent development in honey analysis and application of the honey authentication process in the Romanian context are highlighted, and future trends in the process of detecting and eliminating fraudulent practices in honey production are discussed. 1. Introduction During current global production and marketing, authentication of foodisanimportantissuetoensurefoodquality(Aung&Chang,2014). Prevention of fraud in the food sector and promotion of an authentic productisessentialtoensurethecommercialsuccessofhigh-valueagri- food products on the domestic and international markets. Fraudulent practices, such as replacing the original product constituents with cheaper substituents will have a negative impact on consumer con- fdence and the competitiveness and proftability of honest producers. With concern about the authenticity of food, the members of the Eur- opean Parliament introduced honey to the list of products which are most exposed to the risk of food fraud, in most cases by the addition of sugars, as well as by the false declaration of botanical or geographical origin. Therefore, perfect traceability is crucial for honey to ensure a fair and sustainable apiculture sector. The European Commission en- courages the use of analytical methods to determine the authenticity and quality of honey, both researchers and regulatory authorities are looking for newer, simpler, more sensitive and more economical pro- cedures. In this respect, the European Commission, with the scientifc sup- port of the JRC-Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (JRC-IRMM), has recently organized a fraud detection control plan for EU markets (European Commission, 2015), revealing that 19% of the tested honey (from almost 2200 analyzed) did not meet important criteria for honey. The main identifed nonconformities were: in- compatible processing methods or inadequate storage conditions, identifed based on physicochemical investigations (2%); false de- claration of botanical (7%) and geographical (2%) origins, identifedon the basis of pollen analysis; sugar adulteration based on exogenous sugar addition (6%); other labelling aspects (2%). 40% of the in- vestigated honey samples, proven to be in compliance with the pre- liminary tests performed, were subjected to JRC-IRMM EA/LC-IRMS analysis to detect the possible addition of certain sugar syrups to the honey. The results of the coordinated control plan presented in the JRC’s fnal report indicate that 14% of the checked honey samples did not meet the purity criteria, indicating that exogenous sugars may have been added (European Commission, 2016). According to the European Union Council Directive 2001/110/EC (Council Directive 2001/110/EC, 2001) and FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius (Codex Stan 12-1981, 1981),honeyisdefnedasanatural sweet product of Apis mellifera bees resulting from the nectar of plants or plant excretions, which the bees collect, combine with their own specifc substances and deposit in the honeycomb for maturation. By origin of provenance, honey is classifed as: uniforal (e.g. rape, acacia, linden, sunfower) or polyforal (coming from the nectar of several https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2019.125595 Received 21 April 2019; Received in revised form 8 August 2019; Accepted 24 September 2019 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: irina.geana@icsi.ro (E.-I. Geana). Food Chemistry 306 (2020) 125595 Available online 04 October 2019 0308-8146/ Published by Elsevier Ltd. T