Vanillin

Description

Vanillin is the key component of the vanilla aroma. It occurs abundantly in vanilla beans (2 %), but also in many other plants such as tree bark and resin, sugar beets, cloves, asparagus and potato peelings.

• Provided that it is won from natural raw material, vanilla can be daclared as "natural flavour" on the list of ingredients, whereas "pure vanilla" exclusively comes from vanilla pods.
• Also see: aroma

Application

In processed foods, vanilla is the most popular and most added flavour. Dut to the natural scarcity of pure vanilla, "vanillin" is used for:

• chocolate, ice cream, liqueur, baking goods, instant beverages
• vanilla sugar (for vanilla sugar, only fine powder may be used: minimum content: 5%).

Gene technology

Today, vanillia predominantly is won from debris of the pulp industry.

• A technique has been developed to produce it with help of GM microorganisms. No detailed information is available about the commercial use of this procedure.

Labelling: it may be assumed that vanilla is not subject to a labelling requirement if the production takes place with help of GM microorganisms.