Organic acids chemical profiling in food items

Abstract

A fast separation method for simultaneous determination of eleven organic acids was validated and applied to different commercial food items to evaluate their organic acids content. The present method gives detection limits between 0.04 and 4.65 μg mL-1, recovery values in real samples between 78.2 and 97.3% and relative standard deviation values for precision lower than 5%. All validation data were in acceptable range and prove the method's fit for purpose. The advantages of the method are the short runtime analysis (15 min), no preparation step for the samples before the injection combined with good sensitivity which recommends it for routine control analysis in food industries. Moreover, this methodology has high potential in drinks industry but can by further extended to other types of food items.