Discrimination of the geo-origin of Korean garlic (Allium sativum L.) using bulk stable isotope ratio and supervised chemometric modeling method

Abstract

Reliable methods for food product origin identification are essential for establishing food safety and food control to tackle the various additives and contaminants in food trade and market systems. In this study, we examined the bulk stable isotope ratio (SIR) in the bulbs of three Korean garlic cultivars grown in four regions. In garlic samples, δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N, and δ³⁴S showed significant differences among the four regions (p < 0.05), whereas δ¹⁸O did not. Linear discriminant analysis and support vector machine algorithms showed approximately 90 % overall classification accuracy for the original set in both models. In this study, we demonstrate that the bulk SIR-based supervised model method is potentially reliable, being a valuable tool for the identification of Korean garlic. Furthermore, comparing our results to other published results of foreign origin garlic, this model exhibits promising potential in distinguishing between garlic species of foreign and Korean origins.