Biogenic amines as quality marker in organic and fair-trade cocoa-based products

In this study, the quantitative determination of eight biogenic amines (cadaverine, serotonin, histamine, spermidine, spermine, tyramine, putrescine and β-phenylethylamine) by an liquid chromatography method with evaporative light scattering detection was performed. The analysis of several samples of conventional, organic and fair trade cocoa-derivatives showed that organic and fair trade samples always contain much lower amine concentrations in comparison with their conventional counterparts, supporting the idea that biogenic amines can be regarded as cocoa quality markers. Irrespective of the kind of sample, results also showed that the most abundant amines were histamine, tyramine, spermidine, putrescine and spermine while β-phenylethylamine, cadaverine and serotonine have been found more rarely, all the amines never reaching dangerous amounts for consumer health. With the aim to confirm the experimental results, clustering analysis was performed on samples and instrumental results using principal component analysis.