What is a Burnt Sugar?

"Burnt Sugar' is a light to dark brown liquid or solid which is obtained from controlled heating of sugars and which is used primarily for flavouring and/or sweetening".

This caramel is conformed to the French definition of "caramel aromatique" AFNOR NFV00-100. This caramel also conforms to the definition of E150a Caramel Colour of European Directives 94-36, 2008-128 and following regulations:

• EUROPEAN COUNCIL DIRECTIVES: Food additive E150a (2008/128/EC)
• JOINT FAO / WHO EXPERT COMMITTEE ON FOOD ADDITIVES (JECFA 52/8)
• FOOD CHEMICALS CODEX (FCC-6th edition)
• US CODE OF FEDERAL REGULATIONS (21 CFR-73.85)

Burnt Sugar Labelling (EC REGULATIONS):

• If used for its flavouring properties: "caramel (glucose-fructose syrup, water)" or "glucose-fructose syrup caramelized, water". Other denominations can be used: Burnt Sugar, caramelized sugar or caramelized syrup.
• If used for its colouring properties: "colour: E150a" or "colour: caramel E150a" or "colour: plain caramel"

Burnt Sugars are manly used for colouring balsamic vinegar, confectionary, baked goods and pet foods.

Caramel Colours and Burnt Sugars for Clean Label Opportunities

Caramel Colours are, by far, the most widely used food colours. Produced mainly from sugars, they give the final food or drink the desired brown colour and provide both excellent stability and cost efficiency.

Caramel Colours are divided into 4 classes, according to the type of reactants used to promote sugar browning process. These reactants (soda, sulphite and/or ammonia ions) confer specific characteristics to the caramels, ensuring their compatibility with the food or drink in which they are used. Depending on the class of Caramel Colour used, the labelling of the corresponding coloured product must specify: "colour: E150a (or plain caramel), E150b (or caustic sulphite caramel), E150c (or ammonia caramel) or E150d (or sulphite ammonia caramel).

Consumers have been paying increasing attention to their food and the "back to nature" trend has been prevalent in the food industry for some years now. This is leading to an increasing interest by food and drink manufacturers in "clean label" ingredients.

Sethness-Roquette, European leader on the Caramel Colours market, is aware of these new strategic stakes and has launched on the market, thanks to and through its Research and Development organization, solutions for Clean Labelling in order to meet its customer's demands.

A new range of E150a caramels has recently been introduced by the company. These new caramels, which can be labelled as "plain caramel", present excellent colouring properties and are compatible with a vast variety of foods and drinks.

Sethness-Roquette has also introduced in its product range a variety of Burnt Sugars in liquid or powder forms. These products are obtained by the controlled heat treatment of sugars according to a traditional process, as defined in directive EC 1334/2008.

Burnt Sugars can provide both taste and colour and can be used for many different applications, confectionary, dairy products, ready meals, soups and sauces, desserts, pet food (appearance enhancer for cats and dogs), etc.

This new product corresponds to both the definition of plain caramel and Burnt Sugar. As far as labelling is concerned and as mentioned in article 6 of regulation 2000/13/EC, "if an ingredient belongs to more than one of the categories, the category appropriate to the principal function in the case of the foodstuff in question shall be indicated".

• When a Burnt Sugar is used for its flavouring properties, it can be labelled as: "burnt sugar" or "caramelized sugar".
• When a Burnt Sugar is used for its colouring properties, it has to be labelled as:

The European Technical Caramel Association (EUTECA), of which Sethness-Roquette is an active member, agreed in October 2010 on a decision tree on how to distinguish easily between E150a Caramel Colour (plain caramel) and Burnt Sugar. The decision tree is available on the website www.euteca.org

Sethness-Roquette is producing these new plain caramels and Burnt Sugars on brand new processing lines which have been recently installed in its state of art caramel factory located in Merville, Northern France.

Both plain caramel and Burnt Sugars can be supplied in a variety of packaging adapted to end user requirements, or in bulk tankers.