Non-destructive fraud detection in rosehip oil by MIR spectroscopy and chemometrics

•Clear differences between authentic and adulterated rosehip oils in validation set.•100% correct classification was obtained for the training and validation set.•Rapid, specific, selective and non-destructive methodology based on MIR spectra and PLS-DA.•MIR spectroscopy can be used to detect adulteration of rosehip oil.

Rosehip oil (Rosa eglanteria L.) is an important oil in the food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. However, due to its high added value, it is liable to adulteration with other cheaper or lower quality oils. With this perspective, this work provides a new simple, fast and accurate methodology using mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) as a means to discriminate authentic rosehip oil from adulterated rosehip oil containing soybean, corn and sunflower oils in different proportions. The model showed excellent sensitivity and specificity with 100% correct classification. Therefore, the developed methodology is a viable alternative for use in the laboratory and industry for standard quality analysis of rosehip oil since it is fast, accurate and non-destructive.