A combined elementomics, metabolomics, and chemometrics approach as tools to identify the geographic origins of black pepper
Cynthia Adaku Chilaka, Maria Del Mar Aparicio-Muriana, Awanwee Petchkongkaew, Brian Quinn, Nicholas Birse, Christopher T. Elliott
Abstract
Black pepper is one of the most widely used spices with high market value globally. Its supply chains complexity and economic value predispose it to fraud. Determining the provenance of this spice is imperative to protect all stakeholders in the value chain. We explored elementomics, untargeted metabolomics, and chemometrics approaches in tracing geographical origin of black pepper. A total of 150 black pepper samples were collected from five countries (Brazil, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Vietnam) and analysed using ICP-MS and LC/QTOF-MS to obtain elemental and chemical fingerprints of the samples, respectively. Chemometric techniques were used for the multivariate analysis to discriminate and classify samples' origins. Further geographical differentiation was carried out by applying a data fusion approach. ICP-MS demonstrated 85 % classification accuracy while LC/QTOF-MS and data fusion approach gave 100 % discrimination rate. Our findings provide empirical evidence for combined elementomics, metabolomics, and chemometrics techniques for black pepper authentication toward fraud prevention. • Application of ICP-MS and LC/QTOF-MS fingerprinting for authentication of black pepper. • Data were analysed using multivariate statistical and data fusion approaches. • Good geographical classification was achieved with a supervised multivariate analysis. • Classification accuracy rate of above 85 % was achieved by both ICP-MS and LC/QTOF-MS. • 100 % prediction performance of geographical ID was obtained using data fusion approach.