Identification of vegetable oil botanical speciation in refined vegetable oil blends using an innovative combination of chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques

•A rapid, cost-effective staged procedure for the detection of vegetable oil species in oil blends.•It is based on FTIR spectroscopy screening and FAME chromatographic analysis for confirmation.•In a single laboratory validation the method displayed excellent results. European Regulation 1169/2011 requires producers of foods that contain refined vegetable oils to label the oil types. A novel rapid and staged methodology has been developed for the first time to identify common oil species in oil blends. The qualitative method consists of a combination of a Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy to profile the oils and fatty acid chromatographic analysis to confirm the composition of the oils when required. Calibration models and specific classification criteria were developed and all data were fused into a simple decision-making system. The single lab validation of the method demonstrated the very good performance (96% correct classification, 100% specificity, 4% false positive rate). Only a small fraction of the samples needed to be confirmed with the majority of oils identified rapidly using only the spectroscopic procedure. The results demonstrate the huge potential of the methodology for a wide range of oil authenticity work.