Fenchem earns US and EU organic status for inulin

13-Aug-2009 - Last updated on 17-Aug-2009 at 06:51 GMT

Chinese supplier, Fenchem, has won organic certification in the US and European Union for its proprietary inulin ingredient, In-fibre, in what the company describes as a “huge project”.

The certification took about three years for the company to achieve from establishing and actualising the control system, undergoing an audit from relevant authorities and waiting for the certification to be authorised.

The company can now sell its organic, Jerusalem artichoke-derived version of inulin in markets with a combined population of close to 800m people.

It does not offer non-organic inulin, which is typically used as a prebiotic and as a fibre ingredient, with links to gut health, immunity and weight loss.

Fenchem, spokesperson Junny Liu, told NutraIngredients.com this morning that the EU organic standard was tougher to achieve than its US counterpart, but inspectors had detected no issues in Fenchem’s organic processes.

The company does not have Chinese organic certification, but has not applied for it as the US and the EU are its target markets.

In those markets, Belgian-based Beneo-Orafti along with Cosucra, and the Dutch firm, Sensus, are dominant, but their offerings are not organic and derived from the chicory root.

Liu said In-Fibre would sell at an approximate 30 per cent premium over non-organic versions and was seeking GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) approval from the AIB (American Institute of Baking).

She said the company was pursuing similar certification for its rosemary extracts, which it expected within two months.

“We are also trading some other organic ingredients such as plant oil and aloe vera to the EU and USA market.”

Inulin assay

The company recently debuted an inulin test to defeat counterfeiters employing the commonly used United States Pharmacopoeia (USP) with ELSD (Evaporative Light—Scattering Detector) to deliver more accurate readings.

Typical inulin offerings are combinations of oligosaccharides and polysaccharides and small amounts of free glucose, free fructose and free sucrose are commonly used as well.

“Theoretically, only the oligosaccharides and polysaccharides can be considered as inulin and act as prebiotic for human health,” Fenchem said in June.

“So, the inulin assay should be calculated by the assay of oligosaccharides and polysaccharides. However, according to USP method, the calculated inulin assay is composed of not only oligosaccharides and polysaccharides but also free glucose and free sucrose.”