Assessment of paprika geographical origin fraud by high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection (HPLC-FLD) fingerprinting

Paprika production under the protected designation of origin (PDO) standardized procedures leads to more quality products. However, it is also related higher retail prices, making them susceptible adulteration with low-quality paprika or its agricultural origin’s mislabeling. Therefore, in this study, high-performance liquid chromatography fluorescence detection (HPLC-FLD) fingerprints, strongly phenolic acid and polyphenolic compounds, were proposed as chemical markers assess classification from five European regions (three Spanish PDO, Hungary, Czech Republic), through a decision tree constructed by partial least squares regression-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) models. After external validation, an excellent accuracy 97.9% was achieved. Moreover, chromatographic fingerprints detect quantitate two different geographical blend scenarios (PLS) regression. Low validation prediction errors —with values below 1.6 10.7%, respectively— obtained.