News

GNT: EXBERRY ”fully compliant”

30 Nov 2015

GNT has announced that its EXBERRY Colouring Foods are fully compliant with the new “EU Guidance Notes on the classification of food extracts with colouring properties”, which come into final effect on 29th November 2015.

GNT has announced that its EXBERRY Colouring Foods are fully compliant with the new “EU Guidance Notes on the classification of food extracts with colouring properties”, which come into final effect on 29th November 2015. GNT notes that inspection, verification and certification company SGS has undertaken an independent assessment of GNT’s products, and verified that GNT’s EXBERRY products are Colouring Foods, fulfilling all aspects of the EU Guidance Notes. This, says GNT, clearly differentiates them from additive colours.

From 29th November 2015 all colouring products that do not fulfil the criteria for Colouring Foods will be classified as food additives which require regulatory permission and have to be designated by the name of the category “colour”, followed by their specific name or E number on the label, GNT points out.

Colouring Foods, by contrast, are food ingredients which are declared on the product label simply as what they are, says the company - for example “Colouring Food (concentrate of pumpkin and carrot)”. This consumer-friendly and transparent labelling is said to show at a glance that Colouring Foods are natural colours produced from foods.

“With the clear classification of Colouring Foods, the EU Guidance Notes deliver a very important basis to ensure a consistent approach in providing consumers with the opportunity to choose products where such food ingredients are used to provide colour,” said Paul Collins, Board Member and International Director of Sales and Marketing at the GNT Group. “They give food and drink manufacturers’ clarity, consistency and certainty in their decisions and support them in providing today’s health conscious consumers with the natural and colourful products that they demand.”

EXBERRY Colouring Foods are produced from fruit, vegetables and edible plants using what GNT says are its unique and gentle physical processing methods, such processes include pressing, chopping and filtering. The company notes that great care is taken to protect the colour, with water used as the processing media.