Far cheaper „articficial“ vanillin produced synthetically is often used as substitute. According to offers on „alibaba.com“ prices for this kind of vanillin ranges from ten to twenty Euros per kg, sometimes even less, while genuine vanilla is worth more than 150 Euro per kg1 (see figure 1).
Importers of vanillin containing products want to protect themselves from fraud in order to prevent financial losses and guard against claims from clients in case of resale of the products. Naturaly, the consumer who pays for genuine vanilla expects to get the real, natural vanilla extract and not a cheap substitute. This demonstrates the necessity to be able to distinguish synthetically produced vanillin from that extracted from genuine vanille beans.
Recently, this has been achieved by a collaboration of two labs of the Tentamus Group, aromaLAB (Munich, Germany) and Quality Services International (QSI, Bremen, Germany). aromaLAB developed the extraction method while QSI performs the analyses by means of isotopic ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS). The method measures isotope fractionation, which differs between synthesized vanillin and that of genuine vanilla bean extract. As such this method is able to identify whether vanillin has been extracted from a genuine vanilla bean. It is now possible to provide an effective means to protect buyers of vanillin from fraudulent goods and thus from financial loss.
1Data from EU Market Access Database: http://madb.europa.eu/…
Would you like to know more? Please contact our experts:
Arne Dübecke
Global Center of Excellence for Food Fraud
Flughafendamm 9a
28199 Bremen
+49-421-596 607 37
arne.duebecke@tentamus.com
Dr. Monika Christlbauer
aromaLAB GmbH
Semmelweisstr. 3
82152 Planegg
+ 49-89-897 437 00
monika.christlbauer@aromalab.de
Our enterprise is a food-chemical research and development lab with the emphasis on flavor and taste analytics. AromaLAB AG (since 2016 aromaLAB GmbH) was founded at the beginning of 2006 as an independent corporation having its roots from the food chemistry department of the Technical University of Munich in Garching.
As the first food-chemical research and development lab of its kind, Aromalab operates on the basis of the internationally recognized flavor value concept exclusively with questions involving flavor and taste analytics.
Quality Services International GmbH, Bremen Germany
QSI is the leading laboratory for quality control of food, honey & drugs.
As an independent German laboratory and consulting services provider QSI is the reliable and officially authorized partner of production, trade, and export as well as associations and institutions on all matters concerning product safety, quality assurance and hygiene of foodstuffs, honey, pharmaceuticals as well as cosmetics.
Both companies are subsidiaries of the Tentamus Group.
Please visit us:
www.aromalab.de
www.qsi-q3.de
www.tentamus.com
Tentamus Group GmbH
An der Industriebahn 26
13088 Berlin
Telefon: +49 (30) 206038-230
Telefax: +49 (30) 206038-190
http://www.tentamus.com
Director Business Development
Telefon: +49 (30) 206038164
E-Mail: yvonne.pfeifer@tentamus.com
Global Center of Excellence for Food Fraud
Telefon: +49 (421) 59660737
E-Mail: arne.duebecke@tentamus.com
aromaLAB
Telefon: +49 (89) 89743700
E-Mail: monika.christlbauer@aromalab.de
