Abstract
The suitability of sterol profiles established by HPLC-MS as a tool to discriminate between seven cultivars of Tunisian virgin olive oils (VOOs) was evaluated in this study. Moreover, some cultivars (Chemchali, Fouji and Zarrazi) have been also classified according to their maturity index. A total of nine sterol peaks, which appeared in all samples, were used to develop linear discriminant analysis (LDA) models able to distinguish Tunisian VOOs according to their cultivar or maturity index. An excellent predictive classification was obtained since all samples were correctly classified. Therefore, it has been demonstrated that sterol profiles are a powerful tool to discriminate VOOs coming from different cultivars and maturity indexes.