Authentication of geographical growth origin of black pepper (piper nigrum l.) based on volatile organic compounds profile: A case study for Malaysia and India black peppers

Black pepper is one of the common spices used in foods as a favoring agent. Their utilization is diversified into other applications such as pepper spray for defense, medicine for healthcare and pest control in the agriculture sector. In order to meet the industry demand, various countries with a suitable tropical climate have grown black pepper as one of their export commodities. Indirectly, reputation and quality of the black pepper are associated with the growth origin as the soil quality, handling processes, and growing environment will influence the final grade of the black pepper. Geographical origin has become one of the parameters in determining the price of the pepper. In view of this, there is a pressing demand to have a standard to identify the growth origin of black pepper to avoid counterfeit issues with the intention to scope for higher market price. This paper reports an attempt to determine the growth origin of black pepper (Piper nigrum L.) based on the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) profile recorded using high resolution gas chromatography mass spectrometry system. In this work, black peppers from two different countries of origin; namely from Malaysia and India were selected as a case study. A total of 252 of black pepper samples from these two origins were extracted for non-polar compounds using a standard method and the VOCs profiles were then subjected to Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Fold Change Analysis. PCA cluster plots showed that Indian and Malaysian black pepper can be confidently discriminated by means of unique non-polar compounds present in the pepper samples.