Assessment of geographical origin and production period of royal jelly by NMR metabolomics

Royal jelly (RJ) represents the most valuable product of beekeeping activities. The illegal introduction of RJ of uncertain quality/origin in European agrofood markets is not controlled, since the conventional analytical methods cannot unambiguously distinguish foreign from autochthonous RJ products. Here, we applied liquid-state NMR spectroscopy combined with chemometry to characterize the metabolic profile of representative Italian highquality RJ products and evaluate the discrimination capacity of this analytical technique.The application of NMR spectroscopy promises to enable the efficient protection of both the producers and consumers of high-quality royal jelly. In addition, the proposed method may be used in combination with the conventional melissopalynological methods for recognizing frauds