Use of market share data to select food products for an occurrence survey on flavourings in eight EU countries within the FACET project

Abstract

Dietary exposure assessment to flavourings presents a challenge due to the very large number of food products in which they may be present and the lack of knowledge of their actual presence. Industry claims to be adding more than 2800 different chemically defined flavourings in the European Union (EU). Within the Flavours, Additives and Food Contact Material Exposure Task (FACET) EU project, an occurrence survey was performed to explore the possible use of the information that can be collected from the labels to reduce the uncertainty in exposure assessment. An ad hoc procedure based on the use of market share data of food and drinks was developed for the selection of products to be collected. A database of information retrieved from the food labels of branded products from large and small companies was created. Such information may be used to populate some databases of the software developed within the FACET project to assess total dietary exposure to flavourings.

• Baby foods
• beverages
• dietary exposure assessment
• food ingredient database
• yoghurts

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank all FACET partners for their assistance in the identification, collection and data entry of food labels and in particular to Iisa Laaksonen, Salla Luhtala and Heli Reinivuo (National Public Health Institute – KTL, FI); Karine Vin (Agence Nationale de Sécurité Sanitaire de l'Alimentation de l'Environnement et du Travail – ANSES, FR); Viktória Szucs (Central Food Research Institute – CFRI, HU); Iwona Traczyk and Alicja Walkiewicz (National Food and Nutrition Institute – IZZ, PL); Renata Barros and Pedro Moreira (Faculdade de Ciências da Nutrição e Alimentação da Universidade do Porto – FCNAUP, P); Gemma Faulkner, Tracy McCrorie, Lynn McGuffin and Kirsty Pourshahidi (University of Ulster – UU, UK).