Defining the term ‘natural’ in the context of food products - Natural Food Additives, Ingredients and Flavourings - page 9

'Appropriate physical process' shall mean a physical process which does
not intentionally modify the chemical nature of the components of the
fl avouring, without prejudice to the listing of traditional food preparation
processes in Annex II, and does not involve, inter alia, the use of singlet
oxygen, ozone, inorganic catalysts, metal catalysts, organometallic reagents
and/or UV radiation.

This defi nition allows processes that do not intentionally modify the chemical
nature of the components but then qualifi es this by stating that this is without
prejudice to Annex II processes. Essentially it is saying that Annex II processes
(cooking, roasting grilling, etc.) intentionally change the chemical nature of foods
but are permitted in the production of natural fl avouring materials. Physical
processes not included in Annex II may induce physical or chemical changes such
as dissolving solids in solvents and here the word 'intentionally' is important. If
the primary intent is not to chemically modify components it is interpreted as
unintentional and as such is permitted.
Examples of acceptable physical processes are:
• Physical processes used for isolation and purifi cation separating constituents
into multiple fractions, e.g. oil/water phase separation and fractional distillation.
• Physical processes that induce a compositional change, e.g. changing the
equilibrium between constituents of a mixture.
• Physical processes applied with the intention of isolation/purifi cation through
which new components may be unintentionally formed, e.g. steam distillation.
• Physical processes that remove undesirable substances from fl avourings, e.g.
the removal of hydrogen cyanide from benzaldehyde isolated from almond
seeds.

Annex II covers traditional food preparation processes but should not be literally
interpreted as domestic cooking practices. It also spans industrial processes with
a history of use and expected to be known and accepted by the general public and
which conform to Annex II. Industrial processes cannot necessarily be compared
to traditional food preparation processes because of their scale and construction,
but providing they comply with the intrinsic characteristics of Annex II processes
they will be acceptable for the production of natural fl avourings. EFFA has
compiled a list of industrial processes used to obtain natural fl avouring substances
and fl avouring preparations; these are itemised in the fi rst column of Table 1.2.

￿ ￿ ￿ ￿ ￿

Enzymatic and microbiological processes
Enzymatic and microbiological processes do have the intention of chemically
modifying the nature of the components. This is recognised in the legislation and
their use is approved for the production of natural fl avourings. The permitted
physical processes and the enzymatic and microbiological processes may be used
sequentially and repetitively in any order in the formation of natural fl avouring
substances and fl avouring preparations, and can be used so as to specifi cally
optimise the formation of the natural fl avouring materials. The intermediates do