Valorization of kiwifruit branches as plant-derived aroma materials: HS-GC-IMS-guided volatile profiling and aroma reconstruction

Kiwifruit branches are abundant pruning residues with potential as plant-derived aroma materials. This study evaluated their feasibility for reconstructing the volatile profile of a commercial silver vine-associated aroma reference. Six kiwifruit branch samples and one commercial reference sample (G7) were analyzed using HS-GC-IMS. A total of 64 volatile compounds were tentatively annotated, and multivariate analysis showed that G7 had a distinct volatile profile compared with the individual branch samples. Twenty-six differential volatiles selected based on VIP > 1 and P < 0.05 were grouped into four odor-based aroma modules for blending optimization. A binary blend of Jintao and Jinyan branches at a ratio of 0.69:0.31 showed the highest module-level similarity to G7. ROAV analysis further identified eight key odor-active differential compounds associated with the characteristic aroma profile of G7. These results indicate that selected kiwifruit branches have potential as aroma materials for the reference-guided reconstruction of commercial silver vine-associated volatile profiles.