Characterization of kabylian virgin olive oils according to fatty alcohols, waxes, and fatty acid alkyl esters

This work is aiming to characterize the fatty minor compounds of Kabylian virgin olive oils (Kabylian-VOOs) obtained from Chemlal, Azeradj and Bouichert olive cultivars. The content of sterols, triterpenic dialcohols, diterpenic alcohols, aliphatic alcohols, triterpenic alcohols, fatty acid alkyl esters (FAAEs) and waxes were determined. The most abundant common sterols were β-sitosterol and Δ5-avenasterol that were in high level in Azeradj-VOO and Chemlal-VOO, respectively. The wax and FAAEs content were close to limits set by the last trade standard regulation for all samples. Low amounts of aliphatic alcohols were found with a predominance of hexacosanol while high concentrations of triterpenic alcohols were found, in particular in Azeradj-VOO. The most abundant detected phytosterols were cycloartenol (823.60–2158.46 mg/kg), β-sitosterol (706.78–976.66 mg/kg), butyrospermol (580.00–787.32 mg/kg) and Δ5-avenasterolv (237.30–449.33 mg/kg) for all samples. Multivariate statistical analyses showed a good discrimination according to the fatty alcohols although the composition of Chemlal-VOO was closer to that of Bouichert-VOO. The Azeradj-VOO alcoholic composition was different from others and it’s the richest one in phytosterols. In summary, each Kabylian-VOO had its own alcoholic fingerprint in which cycloartenol (a 4,4′-dimethylsterol) was the main species, 2158.46 ± 32.24 mg/kg in the case of Azeradj-VOO.