HONEY CLASSIFICATION USING COLOUR MEASUREMENT

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to classify honey to their floral source based on their colour. For this study were chosen 15 samples of honey from different floral sources (5 samples of acacia, 5 samples of tilia and 5 samples of sun flower honey).  The colour of honey is influenced by the floral source, due to the minerals and other minor components presented; exposure to heat and storage time may affect honey’s colour.  One of the easiest way to determine the honey colour is using the reflectance measurement in CIELab coordinates. The coordinates in CIELab dimension are L*, a* and b* values, which explain a 3-dimensional colour space. The L* value is the vertical axis and defines the lightness, and a* and b* values are perpendicular horizontal axes and define red-to-green and blue-to-yellow, respectively. In addition, hue angle (H) and colour intensity (C*) can be calculated from a* and b*. The honeys with the greatest purity of colour were the sun flower and tilia samples; the acacia samples exhibited the least purity of colour. The colour intensity of the samples is different from a floral source to another one. The sun flower sample had the highest colour intensity, followed by tilia and acacia honeys. All the colour parameters were significantly different.