Authentication of Premium Asian Rice Varieties: Stable Isotope Ratios and Multi-Elemental Content for the Identification of Geographic Fingerprints

Abstract

Over 90 percent of the world's rice is produced and consumed in the Asia-Pacific Region. Varieties such as Thai Jasmine rice and Paw San (or “Myanmar pearl rice”) are globally recognised as premium, while more local high-grade varieties include the Indonesian Ciherang and Inpari. Being able to trace the origin of these products has become necessary, since they are marketed at relatively higher prices compared to other cultivars, and they often become the target of fraudulent activities. In this work, we aimed to identify variables that could distinguish the premium-producing regions within each country, by Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (IRMS) and Inductively Coupled Plasma- Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). Following the analysis of more than 300 authentic samples, Low-Level Data Fusion (LLDF) was applied and very high accuracy values were obtained from the (O)PLS-DA models. The most important geo-differentiating variables (VIP>1.4) were identified as: δ13C, δ18O, δ2H, δ34S, Co, Rb, Cu, Ba and Zn.

Keywords: food fraud, IRMS, ICP-MS, data fusion, multivariate analysis