Up to now, many cases of vanillin detected in imported infant formula milk powder have been reported this year. The reasons for frequent vanillin detected in imported infant formula will be explained in detail below.

What is vanillin and is it allowed in infant formula?

Vanillin is an organic compound extracted from vanilla bean, a plant of the Rutaceae family, with vanilla bean aroma and strong milk flavor, and is widely used in cosmetics, tobacco, food, and pharmaceutical industries. The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) has evaluated the safety of vanillin, ethyl vanillin, etc. Vanillin is safe in the intake range of 0-10 mg/kg bw, and ethyl vanillin is safe in the intake range of 0-3 mg/kg bw.

The National Food Safety Standard - Srandard for Uses of Food Additives (GB 2760-2014) approves the use of vanillin as a food flavor, which can be added in limited amounts to older infants and young children formula, but not as food flavor in infant formula(0-6 months infant formula).

According to industry experts, the main role of vanillin used in milk powder is to cover the odor, for example, milk powder will add some DHA from fish oil, the substance itself has a fishy smell. If the quality control is not good, it may be necessary to cover the odor and fishy taste of milk powder through flavoring; or due to improper storage and other factors, the natural milk flavor will be lost, only with the help of flavoring can make up for it.

Reasons for frequent detection of vanillin in imported infant formulas

Some of the imported infant formulas were detected adding vanillin, probably due to the different regulations on the use of vanillin at home and abroad and the shared production line of different products by foreign manufacturers.

The main importing countries of milk powder are concentrated in EU countries, Australia, New Zealand,and the United States, etc., while these countries all allow infant formula to use vanillin and ethyl vanillin according to GMP. Therefore, if foreign production plants want to export infant formula and other products in shared production line, there may be residual vanillin not cleared when alternating, which will finally result in the products exported to China were detected containing vanillin.

Make the necessary process management

In 2021 and 2022, several brands of infant formula have been punished for vanillin failures, and the penalties are high. This problem is not a big quality issue, but the companies also suffered large losses and had a bad impact on brand credibility. We suggest that formula manufacturers, especially plants that conduct intensive production of multiple products, implement strict pipeline cleaning measures. If necessary, products should be tested for potentially mixed substances prior to marketing as a way to avoid the risk of product failure.