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Cocoa powder is a widely used food and ingredient, and is vulnerable to adulteration by cheaper ingredients.  A non-targeted metabolomics approach based on the use of reversed-phase liquid chromatography coupled to a high-resolution mass spectrometer (HPLC-HRMS) was developed to carry out the characterisation of cocoa powder samples adulterated at two different levels, with carob flour, soya flour, and chicory. The extraction procedure and chromatographic parameters were optimised to obtain the highest number of molecular markers. After chemometric analysis of the data, 21 and 37 metabolites in positive and negative ionisation modes, respectively, were found as potential authenticity and adulteration markers in the cocoa powder samples and simulated samples of adulterated cocoa powder. Of these, the identity of only 16 compounds in negative mode and 4 in positive mode could be determined, and most of these compounds belong to the groups of flavonoids, fatty acids, terpenoids, and lysophospholipids, which were potential markers for cocoa adulteration.

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The increase in consumption of vegan foods has promoted higher production of different plant-based proteins. This study looked at developing a non-invasive and rapid method to determine the authenticity of plant-based protein powders (free of soy, lactose, and gluten), and classify possible adulterants (soya, whey and wheat) in the powders, using FT-NIR (Fourier Transform-Near-Infrared Spectroscopy) and chemometrics. A set of 47 pure plant protein samples were analysed by FT-NIR.  A set of 144 adulterated samples were prepared by adding 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 and 40% (w/w) of each adulterant into pure plant-based protein powder samples, and also analysed. The spectra were analysed chemometrically combining one class and multiclass methods, and it was found that this approach could be successfully used in a range of 10–40% of adulteration, to verify the authenticity of the plant-based protein powders and to classify adulterants into soy, whey, and wheat.

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