Honey adulteration with sugar syrups is a widespread problem. Several types of syrups have been used in honey adulteration, and there is no available method that can simultaneously detect all of these adulterants. In this study, we generated a small-scale database containing the specific chromatographic and mass spectrometry information on sugar syrup markers and developed a simple, rapid, and effective ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography/quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC/Q-TOF-MS) method for the detection of adulterated honey. Corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, inverted syrup, and rice syrup were used as honey adulterants; polysaccharides, difructose anhydrides, and 2-acetylfuran-3-glucopyranoside were used as detection markers. The presence of 10% sugar syrup in honey could be easily detected in <30 min using the developed method. The results revealed that UHPLC/Q-TOF-MS was simple and rapid.
Keywords: UHPLC/Q-TOF-MS; adulterated honey; multiclass sugar syrups.