United States Color Additives Amendment

In the United States two classes of color additives are recognized colorants exempt from certification and colorants subject to certification. The former are obtained from vegetable, animal, or mineral sources or are synthetic forms of naturally occurring compounds. The latter group of synthetic dyes and pigments is covered by the Color Additives Amendment of the U.S. Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. In the United States these color compounds are not known by their common names but as FD C colors (Food, Drug and Cosmetic colors) with a color and a number (Noonan 1968). As an example,... 

Copper Chlorophyll. Current efforts to improve the green color of processed foods include the use of copper complexes of chlorophyll derivatives. Copper complexes of pheophytin and pheophorbide are available commercially under the names copper chlorophyll and copper chlorophyllin, respectively. Their use in canned foods, soups, candy, and dairy products is permitted in most European countries under regulatory control of the European Economic Community (47). The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (48) has certified their safe use in foods provided that no more than 200 ppm of free ionizable copper is present. Use of copper-containing chlorophyll derivatives in foods is not allowed in the United States under the Color Additive Amendment to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938. 

There are two classes of color additives, those that must be certified and those that are exempt from certification. Both are strictly controlled in the United States by regulatory statutes (Food Color Additives Amendments), but an official certificate is required for each commercial batch of color of the first group, while no such certificate is necessary for the second group. For certification the manufacturer must submit a sample of the batch to the Food Drug Administration for chemical analysis. The results of the analysis are compared with the specifications for certified colors published in the Code of Federal Regulations. If the compliance is complete, a certificate is issued for that particular batch of color. 

The amendment removed labeling exemptions for allergens in spices, flavorings, colors, and food additives, and also requiring all packaged foods to declare the major food allergens or their protein derivatives. In the United States, the major food allergens include ... 

---