Jams are appreciated worldwide and have become a growing market, due to the greater attention paid by consumers for healthy food. The selected products for this study represent a segment of the European market that addresses natural products without added sucrose or with a low content of natural sugars. This study aims to identify volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that characterize three flavors of fruit and five recipes using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and solid-phase micro-extraction (SPME) analysis. Furthermore, an innovative device, a small sensor system (S3), based on gas sensors with nanomaterials has been used; it may be particularly advantageous in the production line. Results obtained with linear discriminant analysis (LDA) show that S3 can distinguish among the different recipes thanks to the differences in the VOCs that are present in the specimens, as evidenced by the GC-MS analysis. Finally, this study highlights how the thermal processes for obtaining the jam do not alter the natural properties of the fruit.
Keywords: chemical sensors; gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS); jams; linear discriminant analysis (LDA); nanowire gas sensors; volatile organic compounds (VOCs).