Determination of gardenia yellow colorants in soft drink, pastry, instant noodles with ultrasound-assisted extraction by high performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrum

• HPLC-ESI–MS/MS for determination of crocin, crocetin and geniposide .
• Novel, simple, rapid, better resolution and low limits of quantitation
• Fragment ions were determined upon MS/MS at different energies.
• Crocin, crocetin and geniposide were determined in real samples.

A novel, rapid and simple analytical method was developed for the quantitative determination of crocin, crocetin and geniposide in soft drink, pastry and instant noodles. The solid samples were relatively homogenized into powders and fragments. The gardenia yellow colorants were successively extracted with methanol using ultrasound-assisted extraction. The analytes were quantitatively measured in the extracts by liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry. High correlation coefficients (r2 > 0.995) of crocin, crocetin and geniposide were obtained within their linear ranges respectively (50–1000 ng/mL, 50–1000 ng/mL, 15–240 ng/mL) by external standard method. The limits of detection (LODs) were 0.02 μg/g for crocin, 0.01 μg/g for crocetin and 0.002 μg/g for geniposide. And the limits of quantitation (LOQs) were in the ranges of 0.05–0.45 μg/g for crocin, and in the ranges of 0.042–0.32 μg/g for crocetin, and in the ranges of 0.02–0.15 μg/g for geniposide in soft drink, pastry and instant noodles samples. The average recoveries of crocin, crocetin and geniposide ranged from 81.3% to 117.6% in soft drink, pastry and instant noodles. The intra- and inter-day precisions were respectively in the range of 1.3–4.8% and 1.7–11.8% in soft drink, pastry and instant noodle. The developed methods were successfully validated and applied to the soft drink, pastry, and instant noodles collected from the located market in Beijing from China. Crocin, crocetin and geniposide were detected in the collected samples. The average concentrations ranged from 0.84 to 4.20 mg/g for crocin, and from 0.62 to 3.11 mg/g for crocetin, and from 0.18 to 0.79 mg/g for gardenia in various food samples. The method can provide evidences for government to determine gardenia yellow pigments and geniposide in food.