Characterization of Indonesia wild honey and its potential for authentication and origin distinction

Honey is a natural food derived from flowers nectar that has many health benefits. This reason made honey become one of category food product that has a risk to be adulterated because of economically motivation. This study was conducted for characterization and authentication of Indonesia wild honey (IWH) collected from seven geographical regions (Sumatra, Bangka Belitung, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, West Nusa Tenggara, and East Nusa Tenggara) and harvested during 2016-2018 based on physicochemical parameters, sugar content, minerals, and antioxidant components. The study showed that the result differs widely among the type of honey. IWH has a moisture content between 16.52-33.41, a pH value between 3.00 to 4.65 and color characteristic ranged from pale yellow to dark brown. All samples contain the highest amount in potassium, but several minerals found in the specific region. Evaluation of authenticity from sugar content data set by principal component analysis (PCA) and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) revealed that the authentic and adulterated honey samples could be differentiated with a 95.5 accuracy. The honey samples were classified on their botanical and geographical origin using the antioxidant properties, and results of PCA and LDA demonstrated that the antioxidant parameters can provide adequate information to allow classification of the various types of IWH samples collected from different geographical regions with accuracy 80-100 for Bangka Belitung, Sulawesi, Kalimantan, West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara and Java island. © 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.