FoodDrinkEurope, the organisation representing Europe’s food and drink industry, has updated its Acrylamide Toolbox in its 15th edition with new scientific and technological developments. The updat of this toolbox is said to be especially timely given the recent entry into force of the Commission Regulation establishing mitigation measures and benchmark levels for the reduction of the presence of acrylamide in food.

In this latest edition, the FoodDrinkEurope ‘Acrylamide Toolbox’ is claimed to represent the most complete collection of knowledge on acrylamide (AA) formation and mitigation across a variety of foodstuffs. It reflects more than 15 years of cooperation between the food and drink industry and national authorities of the European unio and shows the on-going industry commitment to investigate pathways of formation of acrylamide and intervention steps to reduce exposure.

This updat also incorporates the latest developments and applied scientific knowledge from research to industrial-scale food processing. The Toolbox describes different intervention steps which may prevent and reduce formation of acrylamide in specific product categories.

Some key changes include:

+ A more thorough distinction of the tools applicable for Potato-based Snacks and those for French Fries. Due to different processing and finished product attributes, the same mitigation results cannot be expected for different product categories, and these were therefore appropriately adjusted;

+ Coffee and coffee substitutes (mainly based on cereals and chicory) are now two separate categories, allowing for a more accurate designation of mitigation measures;

+ The section on Methods of Analysis and Sampling has been rewritten to further consider issues surrounding measurement uncertainty;

+ Relevant analysis requirements of the recent Commission Regulation and CEN standardisation work on methods of analysis for Acrylamide in certain foodstuffs have been included;

+ Guidance to correctly implement Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/2158 has been provided.

Given the wide range of product categories, processes, and factors that are to be considered in raw materials used in food products, FoodDrinkEurope says that the Toolbox can assist individual manufacturers, including SMEs with limited R&D resources, to assess and evaluate which of the intervention steps may be the most helpful.