Evaluation of on-site testing methods with a novel 3-in-1 miniaturized spectroscopic device for cinnamon screening

“True cinnamon” is often fraudulently replaced by other varieties for economic reasons. In the powdered form, it is not possible to distinguish the varieties visually, but they differ in their sensory profile, in particular in the aromatic compound coumarin content which has also been deemed hepatotoxic in animal models. Molecular and analytical techniques exist which can be used for authentication but are expensive, time-consuming, and destructive. As an alternative, we tested three different miniaturized spectroscopic techniques namely, ultraviolet–visible (UV–Vis), near-infrared (NIR) and fluorescence (FLUO) to authenticate cinnamon samples. Out of the three, UV–Vis and NIR were superior to FLUO. The separation with UV–Vis and FLUO could be visually identified after pre-processing the spectral data and subsequently submitting it to principal component analysis (PCA). When chemometrics were applied a correct classification rate by variety of 89%, 90% and 89% for UV–Vis, NIR, and fluorescence spectroscopy, respectively, was observed. The usage of miniaturized spectrophotometers combined with PCA and classification algorithms was found promising to authenticate cinnamon.