A first approach towards the development of geographical origin tracing models for North Moroccan olive oils based on triacylglycerols profiles

The triacylglycerols composition of monovarietal Picholine Marocaine olive oils, produced in seven of the most productive areas in northern Morocco, has been established for the first time, starting a register of typicality and geographical identity of Moroccan olive oils. Two hundred seventy‐nine olive samples were collected over two consecutive crop seasons (2011/2012 ( n = 140) and 2012/2013 ( n = 139)), the analysis of the triacylglycerol profiles of the obtained oils was performed using high performance liquid chromatography, the influence of the region of provenance was investigated, and chemometric data analysis (including principal components analysis, linear discriminant analysis, partial least squares–discriminant analysis, and soft independent modeling of class analogies) was used to differentiate the studied samples according to their geographical origin. Twenty‐one triacylglycerols were characterized and the variability observed among the studied samples could be related to the production area. The combination of triacylglycerols composition with chemometrics provided a powerful tool to verify the geographical origin of north Moroccan olive oils. Practical applications: Moroccan legislations established Geographic Indication labels for adding value to typical products. However, the general procedure to control the geographical authenticity of these protected products remains based on the traceability of their production and there is a lack of appropriate and reliable tools for their geographical unambiguous authentication and control. In this work, geographical authentication models for classifying olive oil samples (based on triacylglycerols composition) have been developed and evaluated, achieving adequate classification and prediction rates for oils coming from the main north Moroccan olive growing areas. The results obtained herein, could represent a significant contribution to the control of the geographical authenticity of Moroccan olive oils. The triacylglycerols composition of monovarietal Picholine Marocaine olive oils, from seven of the most productive areas in northern Morocco, is established in this study, analyzing 279 olive samples (over two consecutive crop seasons) by high performance liquid chromatography and Chemometrics.