Characterisation of Serbian unifloral honeys according to their physicochemical parameters

The characterisation of three unifloral Serbian honeys (acacia, sunflower and linden) was carried out based on some common physicochemical parameters (water content, electrical conductivity, free acidity, optical rotation and pH). A total of 201 honey samples, collected during the 2009 harvesting season, were analysed. Principal component analysis (PCA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) were used to highlight the data structure and to find the relationships between the physicochemical parameters and the botanical origin of honey. The variables that best discriminated the samples were electrical conductivity (ranging from 0.10 to 0.76 mS/cm), free acidity (ranging from 7.80 to 42.70 meq/kg) and pH (ranging from 3.17 to 5.85). LDA resulted in a classification model with a high predictive power, allowing further assessment of unknown samples of the three unifloral honeys. Determination of geographic origin of acacia honey samples based on physicochemical properties and chemometrics was attempted.