Authentication of the botanical origin of honey by near-infrared spectroscopy.

Fourier transform near-infrared spectroscopy (FT-NIR) was evaluated for the authentication of eight unifloral and polyfloral honey types (n = 364 samples) previously classified using traditional methods such as chemical, pollen, and sensory analysis. Chemometric evaluation of the spectra was carried out by applying principal component analysis and linear discriminant analysis. The corresponding error rates were calculated according to Bayes' theorem.