The development of honey recognition models with broad applicability based on the association of isotope and elemental content with ANNs

Honey adulteration represents a worldwide problem, driven by the illicit economic gain that producers, traders, or merchants pursue. Among the falsification methods that can unfairly influence the price is the incorrect declaration of the botanical origin and harvesting year. Therefore, the present study aimed to test the potential given by the application of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) for developing prediction models able to assess honey botanical origin and harvesting year based on isotope and elemental fingerprints. For each classification criterion, significant focus was dedicated to the data preprocessing phase to enhance the models' prediction capability. The obtained classification performances (accuracy scores >86% during the test phase) have highlighted the efficiency of ANNs for honey authentication as well as the feasibility of applying the developed classifiers for a large-scale application, supported by their ability to recognize the correct origin despite considerable variability in botanical source, geographical origin, and harvesting period.