ABSTRACT
For several years the only sources of natural avors have been essential oils, fruit juices, vegetable extracts, and some products of animal origin, such as musk, zibet, and amber. Extraction from nature often consists in low yield, expensive, and
troublesome processes. The supply of plant materials is subject to several factors: seasonal variation, variability of weather, risks of plant diseases, political stability of the producing countries, and trade restrictions. Increasing concern for animal protection has forbidden the use of animal-derived odorous compounds. Consumers show an increasing preference for what is de ned “natural,” especially when dealing with food and beverages. Commercial, industrial products gain higher added value when the avoring substances they contain are termed as “natural.” Within the European Union, avorings used to fall under directive 88/388, but the regulatory situation was changed at the end of 2008. On July 28, 2006, the European Commission presented a proposal (European Commission 2006) to update the legislation governing food avorings in order to re ect technological and scienti c developments in this eld. The current de nitions of avorings (e.g., avoring substance, avoring preparation, thermal process avoring) have been re ned, and some new de nitions have been introduced for “food ingredients with avoring properties,” “source material,” “ avor precursor,” and “other avoring.” The proposal introduces stricter conditions for the use of the term “natural” when describing avorings, and it removes the reference to “nature-identical,” which is considered to be misleading for the consumer and which applies to natural avors prepared by synthetic routes. Only two categories of avorings for labeling purposes would remain, “natural” and “arti cial.” In the proposal, it is speci ed that “natural avoring substance” shall mean a avoring substance obtained by appropriate physical, enzymatic, or microbiological processes from the material of a vegetable, animal, or microbiological origin, either in the raw state or after processing for human consumption by one or more traditional food preparation operations.
