Quantitative Methods for Anthocyanins. 4. Determination of Individual Anthocyanins in Cranberry and Cranberry Products

SUMMARY– A new method was developed to determine the quantities of the four major anthocyanins in cranberry and cranberry products. The pigments were streaked on Whatman No. 1 paper and separated by multiple ascending chromatography with 1‐butanol‐benzene‐formic acid‐water (100:19: 10:25). The individual bands were measured by transmission densitometry at 525 nm. The ratio of individual pigments was calculated from the densitometric peak areas. The linearity of densitometric response for anthocyanins was established. The amount of each individual anthocyanin present was calculated from the total anthocyanin content and the ratio of individual anthocyanins. The reproducibility of the methods was 6% for the two arabinosides and 4 to 5% for the two galactosides expressed as the coefficient of variability.