Acrylamide-busting enzyme offers hope to manufacturers

A new enzyme could help manufacturers achieve significant reductions in acrylamide, but regulatory issues must be addressed before it is widely adopted in Europe, according to snack makers.

Acrylamide is a suspected carcinogen created when asparagine, an amino acid found naturally in cereals, reacts with reducing sugars when products are fried, baked or roasted. The European food industry has toiled to reduce it, exploring everything from changes to cooking processes to plant breeding to reduce asparagine levels in crops, with little success.

However, Dutch ingredients firm DSM claims it can help manufacturers of biscuits and other dough-based products reduce acrylamide formation by up to 90% by using PreventASe, an enzyme produced from the Aspergillus Niger micro-organism.

PreventASe converts asparagine into aspartate, another naturally occurring amino acid, so that asparagine is not available to form acrylamide.

The product has been hailed as particularly exciting in that it does not affect the taste, colour or texture of food products, said new business development manager Dr Judith Heikoop. “PreventASe can be easily added to dough-based products such as biscuits, bread, crackers and dough based tortillas.

“However, in crisps and fries the situation is a bit more complex. Several fries are coated with batters that could be treated with PreventASe. However in intact potato matrices the enzyme should reach the asparagine inside the cells. This requires technology that is further being researched.”

PreventASe has just secured GRAS (generally recognised as safe) status in the US and DSM is talking to several European manufacturers about using it.

However, many were waiting to see how new European legislation on enzymes panned out before altering production to incorporate something like PreventASe, said Dr Robert Foot, who covers regulatory affairs at the European Snacks Association.

He said: “Products like PreventASe are clearly a big step forward in tackling acrylamide, although they are only suitable for selected products. However, just because it has GRAS approval in the US doesn’t mean that it is a foregone conclusion that it will get the green light in Europe.”

DSM said it was confident in the safety of the product. “The US Food and Drug Administration stated that there is no reason to question the conclusion that the enzyme preparation is safe, based on the information provided by DSM and other information available to the FDA.”

Currently enzymes used as processing aids are not covered by EU legislation and there is wide variation in the rules between different member states. Under proposed new legislation, harmonised EU rules will be laid down for the evaluation, approval and control of enzymes used in food. There will in turn be a ‘positive list’ of food enzymes used in food for a technological purpose, based on favourable scientific opinions from the European Food Safety Authority.

The legislation, due to get its first reading in the European Parliament later this month, also includes requirements for the labelling of food enzymes other than those used as processing aids. Enzymes with a technological function in the final food will have to be labelled as ingredients with their function and name.

This is also an important issue for manufacturers keen to use PreventASe to tackle acrylamide, said Richard Stadler, quality manager at Nestlé’s product technology centre in Vevey, Switzerland. “An important consideration in the use of asparaginase as a processing aid is to ascertain that the enzyme is no longer active in the final food product.”

If residual traces of it were present in the final product, it might have to be declared as an additive on packs, he said.

Professor Nigel Halford at Rothamsted Research, UK, is currently studying different wheat genotypes with respect to asparagine and free sugar accumulation. He said PreventAse was “only likely to work in those foods that allow take-up and mixing-in of the enzyme”

He added: “It is therefore promising for bread, for example, if cost allows, because you can mix it in to the dough before baking, but is unlikely to be useful for say roast potatoes cooked in the home.”