Use of market share data to select food products for an occurrence survey on flavourings in eight EU countries within the FACET project.

Dietary exposure assessment to flavourings presents a challenge due to the very large number of food products in which they may be present and the lack of knowledge of their actual presence. Industry claims to be adding more than 2800 different chemically defined flavourings in the European Union (EU). Within the Flavours, Additives and Food Contact Material Exposure Task (FACET) EU project, an occurrence survey was performed to explore the possible use of the information that can be collected from the labels to reduce the uncertainty in exposure assessment. An ad hoc procedure based on the use of market share data of food and drinks was developed for the selection of products to be collected. A database of information retrieved from the food labels of branded products from large and small companies was created. Such information may be used to populate some databases of the software developed within the FACET project to assess total dietary exposure to flavourings.