SGS Germany Confirms Compliance Of GNT’s EXBERRY® Products With New EU Guidance Notes

EXBERRY® Colouring Foods produced by GNT 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. SGS, the world’s leading inspection, verification and certification Company, has undertaken an independent assessment of GNT’s products. Their comprehensive tests verify that GNT’s EXBERRY® products are Colouring Foods, fulfilling all aspects of the EU Guidance Notes. This 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.

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

Clarity and certainty for the food and drink industry

“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”, says 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 GNT’s unique and gentle physical processing methods, such processes include pressing, chopping and filtering. Great care is taken to protect the colour, with water used as the processing media.

Full supply chain control is a vital element of GNT’s approach, this ensures that all EXBERRY® Colouring Foods are fully traceable, authentic and of consistent high quality. GNT’s supply chain control is truly farm to fork, from the selection of the seeds through to the delivery of the final product. This full vertical integration delivers additional benefits: SGS Institut Fresenius have been able to undertake an independent assessment to verify that EXBERRY® Colouring Foods comply with the EU Guidance Notes and in particular meet the Enrichment Factor threshold value of less than 6.

Agricultural competence is an important part of GNT’s supply chain control, the fruit and vegetables are grown under the guidance and control of GNT. This unique approach to Colouring Foods was vitally important in allowing the independent assessment by SGS Germany to verify compliance.