Testing the nutrients of infant formula: new standard in the ISO series
Nutritional labelling of infant formulas is, unsurprisingly, a heavily regulated area, meaning tight rules around the nutrients they contain. ISO has an industry-recognized series of International Standards for the determination of such nutrients, the latest of which has just been published.
To enable the verification of compliance to labelling, a number of ISO International Standards were developed as part of the SPIFAN project (Stakeholder Panel on Infant Formula and Adult Nutritionals), managed by AOAC INTERNATIONAL in cooperation with ISO and the International Dairy Federation (IDF). This project led to the development of standard method performance requirements and methods of analysis for 20 or more priority nutrients in infant formula and adult nutritionals.
The latest in this series is ISO 23443, Infant formula and adult nutritionals – Determination of β-carotene, lycopene and lutein by reversed-phase ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (RP-UHPLC). Lutein, β-carotene and lycopene are among the carotenoids present in human milk and are often added to infant formula and adult nutritionals, with lutein being important for vision and cognitive function and β-carotene providing provitamin A activity.