Quality Assessment of Raw Honey Issued from Eastern Romania

Aida Albu, Cristina-Gabriela Radu-Rusu, Ioan Mircea Pop, Gabriela Frunza and Gherasim Nacu
Additional contact information
Aida Albu: Animal Science Faculty, “Ion Ionescu de la Brad” University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, 8 Mihail Sadoveanu Alley, 700489 Iasi, Romania
Cristina-Gabriela Radu-Rusu: Animal Science Faculty, “Ion Ionescu de la Brad” University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, 8 Mihail Sadoveanu Alley, 700489 Iasi, Romania
Ioan Mircea Pop: Animal Science Faculty, “Ion Ionescu de la Brad” University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, 8 Mihail Sadoveanu Alley, 700489 Iasi, Romania
Gabriela Frunza: Animal Science Faculty, “Ion Ionescu de la Brad” University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, 8 Mihail Sadoveanu Alley, 700489 Iasi, Romania
Gherasim Nacu: Animal Science Faculty, “Ion Ionescu de la Brad” University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, 8 Mihail Sadoveanu Alley, 700489 Iasi, Romania

Agriculture, 2021, vol. 11, issue 3, 1-17

Abstract: Romania is known among the main European honey producers, due to the variety of landforms as well as the diversity of the flora. Thirty-four honey samples of the acacia, linden and multifloral types, produced in eastern Romania and collected during 2013–2018, were physico-chemically analyzed using methods provided by the national and EU standards. The results of water-insoluble solids, color and refractive index were found to be 0.023–0.131%, 0.3–76.4 mm Pfund and 1.485–1.499, respectively. The moisture content ranged between 15.20% and 20.77%, solid substances content ranged between 79.23% and 84.80% and total soluble substances content ranged between 77.83 °Brix and 83.26 °Brix. The obtained values of specific gravity were from 1.414 to 1.450 g/cm 3 , pH ranged from 3.673 to 5.503 and free acidity ranged between 2.4 meq and 50 meq kg −1 . The ash content and the electrical conductivity varied between 0.030 and 0.543% and 130 and 679 µS cm −1 , respectively. Pearsonʹs correlation analysis showed an intense association of the ash content with electrical conductivity (r = 0.81). Our findings reveal the qualitative level of Romanian honey and the variation in quality parameters due to factors such as geographical region, climatic conditions, botanical origin and handling or storage conditions.

Keywords: raw honey; conductivity; specific gravity; total soluble substances; refractive index; quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/11/3/247/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/11/3/247/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:11:y:2021:i:3:p:247-:d:516676

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().