Dyes Testing for Food

The prominant use of colorants in food products is due to the fact that in many products colour is perceived as a characterizing element and indicator of quality. The food industry uses colorants to make up for changes in colour due to production processes but sometimes also to mask the low quality of raw materials. In some fields, such as confectionery, colorants are largely used also for decoration and artistic purposes.

Dyes Typologies

The colorants used in the food industry can be divided into two broad categories, natural colorants and synthetic colorants.

Natural colorants are often of plant origin (anthocyans, carotenoids, curcumin), but can also be of animal origin (cochineal). Synthetic colorants are usually more stable and less expensive but are perceived by the consumers as more problematic for human health, the latest trend is to replace synthetic colorants present in products with natural colorants.

The colorants can be divided also according to their solubility characteristics, therefore there are water-soluble dyes such as E127, E129 and anthocyans or fat-soluble colorants such as annatto, carotenoids or sudan. Regulations provide for the use of some colorants in certain food products (E123, E127, E142 etc.) while other colorants are forbidden because of their toxicity (E103, E143, Sudan etc.).

Analytical Techniques

The analytical technique employed for the analysis of colorants is liquid chromatography. The use of high selectivity and sensitivity detectors (HPLC-MS/MS) and high precision detectors (HPLC-VIS) allows to face every situation in an optimal way, from the detection of traces of an unwanted colorant in complex matrices to the precise quantification of colorants present in high quantities.

Legislative References

• REGULATION (EC) No 1333/2008 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 16 December 2008 on food additives.

Systematic participation in the Proficiency Test provides external evidence of the performance of the applied test methods. Contact us to receive the results of the latest P-tests.