Identification of characteristic flavour compounds and quality analysis in extra virgin olive oil based on HS‐GC‐IMS

Summary How to quickly and accurately identify different grades of olive oil has always been a difficult problem. In this study, fifty‐four volatile flavour compounds were identified by HS‐GC‐IMS analysis of different grades of olive oil, and sensory analysis of volatile compounds was carried out based on literature, among which fifteen compounds were identified from olive oil for the first time. Volatile component fingerprint, principal component analysis and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS‐DA) were adopted to establish the classification model of different grades of olive oil, which had good fitting and prediction ability. Combined with the PLS‐DA model and literature, seven characteristic flavour substances having fruity and green properties, including (E)‐2‐hexenal‐D, (E)‐2‐pentenal‐M/D, 3‐pentanone, 1‐penten‐3‐one, 2,3‐pentanedione, (E)‐3‐penten‐2‐one‐D and 2‐methylbutanal were confirmed. The contents of these characteristic flavour substances in extra virgin olive oil and other grades were significantly different, which could be regarded as characteristic markers to distinguish different grades of olive oil. In addition, the grades of 11 olive oils were predicted by this PLS‐DA model. The results showed that the model had a good ability to discriminate different grades of olive oil.