Food & Beverage News: Ingredients and Flavours - EU dioxin alert may hit India's guar gum exports

India's guar gum exports may be hit in the short term after the EU food safety experts issued a recent alert on high levels of dioxins in gum shipments from an Indian supplier. India accounts for nearly 80% of world trade in guar gum, a food additive extracted from the guar bean. Swiss company Unipetkin AG, which supplies guar gum products to EU markets, recalled several batches of food additives containing guar gum sent by India Glycols on July 30.

Swiss authorities have told the European Commission, the EU's executive arm that administers EU policy and standards, that 9 EU countries had received guar gum consignments from Unipetkin. There are no details yet on the quantities involved. Recently, EU food safety experts had alerted national authorities in the EU-27 to detain guar gum exports from India Glycols, and test consignments for pentachlorophenol and dioxin. Guar gum coming from other suppliers will also be sampled. Hungary has already blocked the sale of several items from a wide range of food feed and drug products after finding dioxin levels that exceeded the EU's permitted levels.

"Indian exports will definitely be affected in the short term," said Debjani Roy, executive director, Shellac and Forest Products Export Promotion Council, which promotes guar gum exports.

Guar gum is used as an additive in a wide variety of foods - dairy products such as yogurt, ice cream and soft cheese; bread, pasta ham, sausages, prepared fish and pastries. It is also used in animal feed. Guar gum tends to be preferred over other additives and is used as a food emulsifier, thickener and stabiliser.

Only India and Pakistan export guar gum, while China exports processed gum that it imports from India and Pakistan. If a contaminated guar gum batch has already been used for food production, experts in EU member states will check whether the batch complies with EU rules on maximum dioxin levels. If the products comply with EU standards, they can remain on the market, a commission official said. But if they do not, "a withdrawal/recall from the market has to be ordered," he said.