Antioxidant capacity and phenolic content of sweet rowanberries

Sweet rowanberry cultivars adapted to northern climates have been developed from rowanberries (Sorbus aucuparia L.) and hybrids of rowanberry with Malus, Pyrus, Aronia, or Mespilus. The rowanberries studied here (cvs. Burka, Dessertnaja, Eliit, Granatnaja, Kubovaja, Rosina, Rubinovaja, Titan, and Zholtaja) have high antioxidant and phenolic contents. The phenolic content varied between 550 and 1014 mg/100 g of fresh weight in sweet rowanberries, whereas 846 and 717 mg were found in the well-characterized bilberry and lingonberry, respectively. Anthocyanins (6-80 mg) were mainly found from berries of hybrid cultivars. Of the other phenolics, chlorogenic (29-160 mg) and neochlorogenic (34-104 mg) acids constituted the major fraction in all rowanberries, the concentrations almost equaling those present in coffee. Antioxidant capacities of rowanberries were high, as measured with FRAP (61-105 micromol of Fe2+/g) and DPPH (21.3-9.7 g/g DPPH) methods. Principal component analysis was able to separate the cultivars of different origin into clusters on the basis of their phenolic profiles.