Study of different kinds of “Pesto Genovese” by the analysis of their volatile fraction and chemometric methods

The volatile fraction of different kinds of Pesto genovese, a typical Italian basil-based pasta sauce, was analysed by Headspace Sorptive Extraction (HSSE)-Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry (GC–MS) coupled with chemometric methods. Three kinds of commercial samples were considered: (a) non heat-processed shop manufactured, (b) heat-processed industrial and (c) non heat-processed industrial samples. The category of heat-processed samples was easily discriminated by the amounts of the terpene hydrocarbon α-terpinene. In order to distinguish the three categories, multivariate statistical analysis was then performed. Good prediction results were obtained by the combination of Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) and Stepwise LDA (STEPLDA): the percentage of correct predictions was 92 for food industry manufactured non heat-processed samples and 100 both for shop manufactured, non heat-processed samples, and for food industry manufactured, heat-processed samples.