Fingerprinting of Peach During the Ripening Process Using an Analytical Platform with Spectrometric and Volatilome-Based Chromatographic Techniques

Abstract

In recent years, the quality of peaches has been related to their early harvest, so this work has focused on the characterization of the spectral fingerprint using Fourier transform near-infrared spectroscopy, and headspace gas chromatography (HS-GC) coupled to ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) and mass spectrometry (MS) based on their volatilome or volatile organic compound content, with the aim of identifying the optimum ripening point of peaches. A total of 344 samples of two different varieties at all ripening stages were analyzed. The principal component analysis (PCA) showed a clear tendency for samples at the same stage of ripening to form visible clusters. The groups identified by PCA were used to construct partial least-squares discriminant analysis models that allowed differentiation according to ripening and variety. The overall results were very promising, especially for the volatilomes measured by HS-GC-IMS and HS-GC-MS.