DES-tination: A Sustainable Journey to Accurate Aflatoxin Analysis in Pistachios

The organoleptic properties of pistachios, particularly their aroma profile, significantly influence quality assessment and consumer acceptance. These sensory attributes are influenced by factors such as cultivar, geographical origin, harvest conditions, and storage methods. This study aimed to characterize and differentiate pistachios based on their volatile organic compound (VOC) profiles, with emphasis on geographical origin determination. A high-capacity concentration technique, HiSorb, was employed, with extraction parameters optimized through a design of experiment approach. Volatile signatures of 18 pistachio samples from diverse origins were analyzed using two-dimensional comprehensive gas chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (GC×GC-QQQ-MS), utilizing a reversed fill/flush flow modulator. The analytical process resulted in the putative identification of 99 VOCs, based on linear retention indices, mass spectral similarities, and two-dimensional chromatographic positioning. Advanced data processing techniques, including scaling with log-transformation, normalization with z-score, and data reduction via random forest machine learning algorithm, were applied to isolate a panel of 16 discriminatory VOCs. This study presents the first application of raw pistachio VOC profiling for geographical origin classification. The findings contribute to the field of food fingerprinting and offer potential applications in quality control, authenticity verification, and terroir-linked characterization within the nut industry.