Functional Ingredients Challenge Food Industry, Elevate Need for Public Standards

Moreover, demonstration of a particular health or other benefit is often contingent on the quantity of the compound, making accurate measurement essential. This is the case with probiotics, for which digestive and other benefits are often clearly tied to microbe count (enumeration), in addition to the particular microbe strain.

The challenge of such measurement—and how a lack of consistency across the industry can undermine an entire category of ingredients—can be seen in the case of antioxidants. In the marketing of these ingredients/products, “antioxidant capacity” is touted. Yet, multiple methods to measure antioxidant capacity exist. These differ in their methodological approaches and deliver results that cannot be compared among methods. An added complication is that these methods are in vitro tests, and it remains unclear how to correlate such in vitro results to any in vivo effects. Today, antioxidant capacity has become an almost meaningless number, mostly due to industry disagreement over how this property should be measured and reported.

Even with all these challenges, the future of functional ingredients is not doomed. It is incumbent on us all to advance the science, however. The community as a whole—suppliers, regulators, manufacturers, consumers, and standards-setting bodies—must come together and make some decisions on the scientific foundation of functional ingredients and any associated health claims. The industry must come to a consensus on how to determine the identity of these innovative ingredients, as well as how to measure them. The more we look into nuanced effects, such as better vision or improved gut health, the more important this will be for everyone.

This is precisely where independent, unbiased public standards can play a key role. Through its Food Chemicals Codex (FCC), the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) develops standards for the identity, quality, and purity of all types of food ingredients. Any food ingredient legally marketed anywhere in the world is eligible to be included in this compendium, and the USP generally works with a sponsor during standards development. To serve as a true resource for the food industry, many of the new standards being advanced through FCC are those ingredients that are of high interest to manufacturers and consumers. In the category of functional ingredients, these include krill oil, omega 3s, pomegranate juice concentrates, natural colors and sweeteners, and spirulina, among others.

At present, USP standards can assist significantly in confirming the identity, purity, and other quality attributes of these materials, which are coming in from all over the world. However, some—if not most—of these novel ingredients may call for a unique approach, including potentially accounting for the functionality (health claims) of ingredients, a challenge not currently addressed by FCC standards. To explore the critical chemical, physical, and functional characteristics of food (and dietary supplement) ingredients and how to measure them—as well as the degree to which function or health claims is tied to the identity of these ingredients—the USP held its Science and Standards Symposia on this topic in the fall of 2012.

The symposia offered an important starting point for soliciting varied perspectives on some of the unanswered questions and exploring the role of public standards to help ensure the authenticity of these promising ingredients and to help bring consistency to the marketplace. Much work remains to be done, but through the FCC, the USP is considering a variety of ways to provide standards that will meet the needs of manufacturers, regulators, and, above all, consumers, who deserve to know that the products they purchase are not masquerading as something they’re not. More information on the FCC, including how companies can work with USP to develop standards for new ingredients, is available at www.usp.org/food-ingredients/food-chemicals-codex.