Quantifying active and inactive ingredients in a food supplement product containing grape seed extract using ultra-performance liquid chromatography-based three-dimensional modeling

Food supplements often lack strict regulations, which may result in certain complications concerning analysis procedures, labeling, and other related factors. Manufacturers may also modify product formulations with time to comply with evolving regulations, enhance product appeal, improve consumer preference, or optimize quality. These variations necessitate the development of new analytical methods to ensure accurate quality control of food supplements. To address this challenge, a novel ultra-performance liquid chromatography method combined with parallel factor analysis was developed for the simultaneous quantification of active ingredients, resveratrol, quercetin, and inactive ingredient potassium sorbate in a grape seed extract supplement, despite co-elution of analytes in short runtime. Spectrochromatographic data were collected as a function of retention time and wavelength, forming a three-way data structure. Parallel factor analysis modeling of the three-dimensional dataset yielded chromatographic, spectral, and concentration profiles. This innovative approach was validated by analyzing independent test samples. Herein, the recovery results and relative standard deviations were 98.2% (1.83%) for resveratrol, 101.6% (2.47%) for quercetin, and 99.6% (2.45%) for potassium sorbate. The proposed method accurately quantified active (resveratrol, quercetin) and inactive (potassium sorbate) ingredients in commercial supplements using the individual curves of the analytes in the concentration profile. These results demonstrate the three-dimensional approach’s high accuracy, short runtime, and cost-effectiveness, making it a practical alternative to traditional ultra-performance liquid chromatographic analysis. The assay results from the proposed three-dimensional data analysis methodology were statistically compared to those obtained from conventional ultra-performance liquid chromatography, and it was observed that the experimental results were comparable.