Natural Flavouring Substances

CE. 1970. Natural Flavouring Substances, their Sources, and Added Artificial Flavouring Substances. First edition. Council of Europe, Maisonneuve, France. 

Natural flavours and natural flavouring substances. These are preparations and single substances, acceptable for human consumption, obtained exclusively by... 

Table 2.10 shows that the isolation and purification of naturally occurring flavour chemicals and extracts from animal and plant raw materials is most important for the preparation of natural flavours. About 75% of the commercially used flavours come from such natural sources. Physico-chemical reactions of typical flavour precursors may also lead to natural flavouring substances when mild conditions ( kitchen technology ) are applied. In addition, natural flavour chemicals may be prepared by biotechnological processes. This chapter outlines the most important biotechnical manufacturing techniques. 

Natural flavouring substances may be obtained by physical, enzymatic, or microbial processes from materials as defined in Tab. 3.3. Enzymatic and microbial processes are also known as biotechnological processes. 

Thirty years ago, relatively few natural flavouring substances were available. Today, more than two hundred natural flavouring substances of high purity are at our dis-... 

Natural Flavouring Substances Manufactured by Physical Processes... 

Physical processes (see chapter 2) for isolation of natural flavouring substances include distillation, solvent extraction (including supercritical carbon dioxide), and chromatography. Major sources are essential oils. These may be derived from various parts of aromatic plants such as fruits (e.g. citms, fennel), fmit parts (e.g. mace), flowers (e.g. safflower), flower parts (e.g. saffron), flower buds (e.g. clove), bulbs (e.g. onion), barks (e.g. cinnamon), leaves (e.g. basil), leaves and twigs (e.g. mandarin petitgrain), rhizomes (e.g. ginger), roots (e.g. angelica), and seeds (e.g. mustard). 

Tab. 3.4 lists some natural flavouring substances that are isolated from essential oils by physical processes. Cinnamic aldehyde and benzaldehyde have been isolated as early as 1834 and 1837, respectively. 

A selection of biotechnological processes that are used to produce natural flavouring substances is shown in Fig. 3.1 (see also chapter 2.2). Note that physical processes (see 2.1) are always involved in isolating the products from the fermentation broth. 

Fig. 3.1 Selection of biotechnological processes for the production of natural flavouring substances...

Examples of Commercially Available Natural Flavouring Substances... 

A selection of commercially available natural flavouring substances of high purity is... 

In addition to the raw materials commonly used for the production of flavours, such as synthetic flavouring substances, uniform natural flavouring substances (gained by fermentation respectively biotechnological methods), essential oils, absolutes, essences etc., aqueous alcoholic distillation and extraction are processes which are specifically used today for the production of raw materials for the sector of alcoholic beverages, just as they have been for many years in the spirits industry. 

Today natural flavourings can be used without technical restrictions since in the nineties biotechnology and generally improved technologies provide a much wider, better and more economical range of natural flavouring substances. 

EFFA Guidance Document for the Production of Natural Flavouring Substances and (Natural) Flavouring Preparations in the EU—1st Revision (V2.0). 2013. http //www.effa.eu/media/news/46/664/ EFFAGuidanceDocumentproductionofnaturalFlavouringIngredientsRews20corrl30513.pdf (accessed July 14. 2015). 

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