Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
materials are natural. Natural fl avourings in the US must also be GRAS (Generally
Recognised As Safe) listed and fall into three basic categories:
1 FTNF: From the named fruit or food, and as the name suggests, they must
be composed exclusively of extracts, distillates, etc., from the named source.
These are labelled for example, 'natural raspberry fl avor'.
2
WONF: (with other natural fl avourings). These are composed of fl avourings
from the named source but also contain other natural fl avourings. There is no
defi ned minimum for the characterising fl avour and opinions vary on what is
an acceptable level, but the fl avours used in conjunction with the characterising
fl avour should simulate, resemble or reinforce this characterising fl avour. They
are labelled, 'natural raspberry fl avor with other natural fl avor'.
3
Natural fl avour: These fl avours do not contain any material from the named
source but are still composed of natural fl avours and fl avouring ingredients.
These would be labelled; 'natural raspberry type fl avor'.
If there is no named food in the fi nished product, for example, no raspberry in a
raspberry ice cream and it contains a natural raspberry fl avour (FTNF), it would
be labelled 'natural raspberry fl avored ice cream'.
Nature identical is not recognised as a separate category in the US but
artifi cial fl avours are defi ned in the Code of Federal Regulations shown below
(US CFR 2011).
U S fl avour defi nitions
CFR 21, Chapter 1, Part 101.22 (a)(1)
The term artifi cial fl avor or artifi cial fl avoring means any substance, the
function of which is to impart fl avor, which is not derived from a spice, fruit
or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud,
root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, fi sh, poultry, eggs, dairy products,
or fermentation products thereof. Artifi cial fl avor includes the substances
listed in 172.515(b) and 182.60 of this chapter except where these are
derived from natural sources.
Flavouring substances derived from petrochemical sources which, in some
countries (Australia, Brazil and others) are called nature identical, are artifi cial in
the US. Flavouring substances derived by chemical synthesis from natural sources
listed in the extracts above are natural. The last sentence in this defi nition
encompasses the principle that if all the starting materials are natural then the fi nal
product will be natural and synthetic routes can be used to produce them. This
represents a major difference between the defi nition of natural in the EU and
in the US. The prerequisite for a natural fl avouring substance in the EU is that
the source material has to be natural, that the fl avouring substance has been
identifi ed in nature, and that it has been manufactured using traditional food
preparation processes listed in Annex II (Table 1.1). In the US, the regulations are
less proscriptive than in the EU, there is greater fl exibility and more room for
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