Fortified food products are becoming increasingly popular with consumers as they become more conscious about the relationship between their diet and health. With newer, tighter legislation and restrictions being introduced by the EU, food manufacturers must be confident that their claims are based on accurate and reliable results.

At Premier Analytical Services, one of the leading food testing laboratories in Europe, we understand how important claims are when it comes to the promotion of your fortified food products. This is why we endeavour to provide you with a quality service which offers:

• Consultancy advice
• Comprehensive scope of UKAS accredited analyses
• Rapid, reliable results and interpretation
• In house shelf-life tests to study the degradation of vitamins under a controlled environment.

The Commission of the European Communities has recently released a proposal on regulating the addition of minerals and vitamins to foods and the nutritional labelling required for such products. This is becoming an increasingly complex area wherein the potential for error is very high. Premier Analytical Services can help you get it right first time by offering you expert advice that will answer questions such as:

• What substances can be added to foods?
• What are the maximum and minimum amounts for each vitamin and mineral that can be added to foods?
• Do the claims you make on pack or in advertising trigger compulsory nutrition labelling?
• What should be included in the declaration
• and what format and layout should be used?

Vitamins are unstable substances that are easily destroyed, either during manufacture or whilst the product is on-shelf. Premier Analytical Services can help you plan and carry out extensive shelf-life tests on your products to study the “survival” of the vitamins under a controlled environment.

Vitamins:

• All of our analyses are performed by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) which means that our results are obtained much quicker and are more accurate than microbiological methods
• Our simple extraction procedures are always completed in one day which ensures minimum oxidation of the vitamins and rapid reporting of results
• Results are routinely provided within 10 days of sample receipt. This can be reduced to 2-3 days should your circumstances require an urgent response

Minerals:

• The Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectrometer (ICP-OES) is our instrument of choice for our analyses in this area, due to its accuracy and its ability to measure multi elements simultaneously
• Results are routinely provided within 5 days of sample receipt. A faster turnaround can be provided should your circumstances require an urgent response

What the results mean and advice on any course of action that may be required – all providing you with a Comprehensive Minerals and Vitamins Service.

1 Reference Nutrient Intake (RNI) is the amount of a nutrient that is required to meet the needs of 97.5% of the population. These values were obtained from the report by the Expert Group in Vitamins and Minerals (EVM) on the Safe Upper Levels for Vitamins and Minerals published in May 2003 unless otherwise stated.
2 These values were all obtained from documents published by the Scientific Committee on Food (SCF) unless otherwise stated. The estimated maximum intake values were calculated by adding the 97.5th percentile value of the daily exposure from food and other known sources to the amount obtained through supplements.
3 Estimated Average Requirement (EAR) is the amount of a nutrient required to meet the needs of 50% of the population.