CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background and problem statementHoney is a natural product that produced by honey bee from the nectar of plants or the secretion that found on them. Honey has been used over the past 2500 years ago by many cultures from all over around the world. Honey is well known as one of the best prebiotic food supply. Honey composition is varies depending on numerous factor which is floral type, climate, processing and storage conditions (Sun, 2008).

Every honey has its own aroma and taste. Honey aroma can be characterized by its volatile compound that found in it. The flavours in honeys have been identified by experienced noses and tasters as being floral, aromatic-herbal, fresh, citric, fresh-fruit, ripe-fruit, caramel, woody or hay-like (Panseri, Manzo, Chiesa, & Giorgi, 2013). The major volatile compounds found in honey are nonanal, furfunal, decanal, benzaldehyde, Linalool, phenylacetaldehyde, nonanol, 3-phenyl furan, phenylethyl alcohol and nonanoic acid. Honey volatile frequently occur at a very low concentration and has poor chemical stability (Panseri et al., 2013). Due to these properties, a proper method of extraction for volatile analysis is considered. Many author had stated that the employment of headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) and gas chromatography/ mass-spectrometry (GC/MS) is a very sensible and solvent-free method for the extraction and analyses of the chemical volatile (Panseri et al., 2013).

Recently, there is high market demand on pure honey. This has resulted in increased sales of adulterated honey claimed as pure honey by irresponsible persons (Subari, Mohamad Saleh, Md Shakaff, & Zakaria, 2012). As a naturally produced compound that usually in short supply and relatively expensive, honey quality assurance has become real deal. According to Cotte et al, honey fraud may include the addition of sugar syrups or it is sold using fake name (Sun, 2008). Many manufacturers have started to put variants of sugar in pure honey so that it has become insignificant to distinguish between pure honey samples and adulterated ones. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of volatile organic compound in honey by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectroscopy is commonly used to detect the adulteration and authenticity of the honey.

Organoleptic properties of honey, such as flavour, colour, aroma, and texture are closely related to the volatile organic compound. The identification of the volatile compound can be factors estimation of honey quality. According to Wolski (2006), the composition of volatile in honey changes over time depending on the packaging, storage and temperature condition. He also found the present of ethanol as one of the volatile compound is probably a product of fermentation process. Other than that,

In the matter of adulteration or authentication of honey, the volatile compound plays important rules. The amount of volatile compound in pure honey and impure or adulterated honey is different significantly. Pure and fresh honey usually contain more volatile compound. If the honey is diluted with water or sugar syrups, the amount of volatile compound is expected to reduce. Last but not least, this study also can help identify the floral and geographical origin of the honey. 1.2 Significance of study The significant of conducting this study is to help determine the quality of the honey and provide information on the adulteration and the authenticity of the honey. 1.3 Objectives of study The objective of this study is to identify the volatile organic compound present in different brands of honey.

ReferencesPanseri, S., Manzo, A., Chiesa, L. M., & Giorgi, A. (2013). Melissopalynological and Volatile Compounds Analysis of Buckwheat Honey from Different Geographical Origins and Their Role in Botanical Determination. Journal of Chemistry, 2013, 1-11. doi: 10.1155/2013/904202Subari, N., Mohamad Saleh, J., Md Shakaff, A. Y., & Zakaria, A. (2012). A hybrid sensing approach for pure and adulterated honey classification. Sensors (Basel), 12(10), 14022-14040. doi: 10.3390/s121014022 Sun, D. (2008). Modern techniques for food authentication. Amsterdam: Elsevier/Academic Press.

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