Maltose syrup

Description

Maltose syrup is a syrup that is won from maltose (malt sugar) by further enzymatic modification.

Application

Contrary to the saccharose, maltose has minor sweetening power. It is mainly used in:

• baking goods, beverages, confectionary, liquors, infant food
• in form of maltitol as sugar substitute

Gene technology

With starch as the raw material the application of gene technology is possible, especially with enzymes that are applied during the conversion into sugar.

• Raw material: maize starch can partly consist of genetically modified maize, especially when raw materials are imported out of the USA or Argentina. In the EU, genetically modified maize is grown on a comparativelly small area and nonetheless is not used as raw material for foodstuff. This may change in the case that the cultivation of GM maize increases in significance. Ingredients derived from several types of GM maize are approved in the EU.
  In the future possibly as well: starch from potatoes or wheat
• Enzymes: the breaking down and modification of starch is primarily carried out with amylases and other enzymes (glucose-isomerase, pullulanase). Those are mostly won with GM microorganisms.

Labelling: starch based ingredients are required to be labelled, if they are directly produced out of GM plants (e.g. maize). Whether this also applies to maltose syrup, that results by way of various processing stages out of starch, is not yet explicitly clarified.

Enzymes and their manner of production are generally not declared on the list of ingredients.