Acrylamide Risk Assessment for Spices

Hi,

just wondering would anybody have conducted any risk assessments for acrylamide in herbs and spices.

I would have thought that this was really only relevant to products which go through a high heating process i.e frying/baking.

much appreciate any help

Hi,

 If there is no heat treatment I think you are right there is no risk of Acrylamide, but some spices can be heat treated so its worth knowing how they were manufactured I think most spices these days are irradiated which should not have any issue with Acrylamide.

Generally, treatment of herbs and spices will be through high pressure steam, ethylene oxide fumigation (not in EU and only for whole spices in USA) or irradiation. None of these processes should cause formation of acrylamide to the best of my knowledge.

Some companies will have some sort of heat treatment process, for instance we have a supplier that produces roasted dried garlic and also applies heat treatment to some chili powders in order to obtain a darker color.

Acrylamide did not come up on our 1st BRC audit a couple of weeks ago, but now that you have mentioned it I suppose I had better have a think about it before the next audit!

Thanks Both, I will post anything which may come up. I had this with bakery products before and we simply tested and found the levels to be quite low so risk was non-existant. nonetheless, I want to ensure all bases covered.

much appreciated,

Hi changk,

we have a long history in acrylamide mitigation in Germany (since 2002). Acrylamide is a process contaminant which is generated where sugar and amino-groups contaning stuffs are heat treated above 120°C. Though, you should scan for such conditions in your or your suppliers production processes.

In our area (bakery) we have not had herbs and spices with focus acrylamide.

In the EU we are now preparing for the new regulation on acrylamide mitigation coming into operation fprm April 2018. In this document no benchmark is set for herbs and spices.

Rgds

moskito