New Proposed USP Quality Standards for Food Ingredients

2 Jul 2014 --- A series of new proposed quality standards for food ingredients - including standards for a new sweetener that is a candidate for use in baked goods and an oat bran-derived ingredient linked to cholesterol control - are available for public comment by the US Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) in the most recent issue of Food Chemicals Codex Forum. A guidance to fight milk adulteration is also included in the proposals.

“The constantly evolving food industry requires new and updated resources that are valuable not only to set common grounds for food trade, but also for the evaluation of food integrity and safety,” said Gabriel Giancaspro, vice-president for foods, dietary supplements and herbal medicines at USP. “That is why USP is committed to developing new quality standards and guidances for food ingredients. We encourage our stakeholders to send comments and contributions on these proposals because their participation is critical for these tools to acquire the relevancy that the ever growing food supply chain needs.”

Among the standards proposed is Advantame, a new sweetener derived from aspartame and vanillin that is approximately 20,000 sweeter than table sugar and about 100 times sweeter than aspartame alone. “Because it is more stable than aspartame at high temperatures, Advantame is potentially a better candidate for use in baked goods,” said Giancaspro.

“This ingredient has been approved for use in products sold in the United States by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA),” USP’s senior director of food ingredients, Markus Lipp, PhD, told FoodIngredientsFirst. “They consider it safe and have reviewed data from human and animal studies. Having a quality standard for Advantame means that manufacturers using this ingredient can test their samples to make sure that the ingredient they are procuring has the identity, purity and quality attributes pertaining to the ingredient, avoiding potential adulteration with other ingredients.” 

Another proposed standard is Beta Glucan from Oat Bran. Beta-glucans – from barley and oats – have long been linked to health benefits related to the reduction to and/or maintenance of normal cholesterol levels. Beta-glucan from oat bran has been Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2012 for use in a variety of food categories, including bars, yogurt, breakfast cereals, sauces, soups, cookies and crackers. 

“Any manufacturers that wish to use health claims linked to beta glucan from oat bran would have to follow FDA’s rules on how to use the claim in their product labels, explained Lipp. “Of course, in other countries the rules of the respective food regulatory agencies and not FDA will govern the use of this ingredient and any claims associated with it. Again, the quality standard proposed for beta glucan from oat bran from USP gives manufacturers a chance to test their procured ingredients to make sure that they possess the identity, purity and quality attributes expected from those ingredients. It is a measure of food safety, because when you ensure ingredient integrity (it is what it is purported to be), you avoid adulteration with other ingredients.”

Also open for public comment is a guidance standard for adulterants in milk ingredients, which screens for 41 potential nitrogen-containing adulterants. Nitrogen-containing ingredients added to milk are the most common form of adulteration with the fraudulent intent of increasing apparent protein content in milk ingredients. “The method proposed in this standard is capable of detecting very small amounts of suspected adulterants in bulk ingredients. Suspicious samples should still be referred to confirmatory tests,” explains Giancaspro.

“Adulteration of milk (fluid milk or milk powder) has been a concern for a long time when it comes to food fraud,” explained Lipp. “One of the most common fraud techniques is the addition of nitrogen-rich ingredients to milk to increase the amount of apparent protein in milk ingredients (melamine and urea are common adulterants), and USP has developed a guidance to help manufacturers test for the most common adulterants. 

The method proposed in this standard is designed for high-throughput screening of fluid milks or milk powders with the aim of referring fewer, suspect samples, to confirmatory methods. This standard is the first of several standards that USP is working on that will aid the industry in fighting adulteration and help protect the consumer from adulterated materials. The sensitivity of the proposed method allows for detection of adulterants at levels consistent with, and in most cases well below, those indicative of economic adulteration. USP is developing supporting reference standards for analytes covered in this method which are not readily commercially available as high-purity reference materials.

USP’s Food Chemicals Codex Forum is a free, online tool for public review of draft quality standards for food ingredients. The latest proposals are available and open for comment from industry, regulators, academia and other interested parties for a 90-day period, continuing through September 30, 2014.