Bacon, scamorza, ready meals, canned salmon, spices, dried fruit, sauces, chips and other snacks. Foods containing genotoxic smoke flavourings – whose authorization in the EU was revoked on 1 July 2024 – are still widespread on supermarket shelves, as emerges from our market survey. (1)
Genotoxic smoke flavourings, the EFSA opinion
The denial of a new authorization to this category of aromas derives from the scientific risk assessment published by EFSA in November 2023. The Authority highlighted that these substances are genotoxic, i.e. capable of damaging the genetic material of cells and favoring the onset of cancer and hereditary diseases, such as it was seen. (2)
The European Commission therefore had to reject the request for a ten-year renewal of the authorization to use smoke flavourings. But he gave in to the lobbies’ requests, providing a generous extension to their use for the following ones:
- five years, if the chemical flavoring is used to replace traditional (physical) smoking in meat-based preparations and products (würstel, bacon and other cured meats), fish (salmon, herring, etc.) and some cheeses (provola smoked),
- two years, when smoke flavorings are added only to give a flavor that is independent of the food production method, as in soups, sauces or chips, for example. (3)
Salmon with ‘smoked flavour’
Smoke aromas are even used in salmon preserves. We found two, under the Rio Mare and Carrefour brands.
These products are presented as with ‘smoked flavour’, as required by the Codex Alimentarius. (4) The rule applies only to fish, while for the other categories the term ‘smoked’ is always used on the front of the package.
Transparency on the label however, is scarce in many cases. The dreaded smoke flavorings can in fact be listed among the ingredients with the simple wording ‘flavors’.
Smoked scamorza with herbs
The aromas smoking methods are also widely used in scamorza, in the various forms of presentation (whole, sliced, sticks etc.).
We found nine, almost always in the cheaper lines.
The ‘veg’ version – imitation of smoked scamorza – in turn contains the same aromas.
Bacon and other meat products
Bacon and other products and preparations meat-based are another food category often smoked through the addition of chemical flavourings. Not only in discount products but also in industrial brand ones, i.e. Fratelli Beretta, as the table shows.
The invasion of barbecue flavor with smoke aromas
The ‘barbecue flavour’ (BBQ) – nothing more than ‘smoked taste’ – is now found on several categories of ultra-processed foods without any smoking tradition.
‘Barbecue flavour’ sauces, dried fruit, ready meals, chips and snacks – all with smoke flavors – in the tables below.
French fries and savory snacks don’t escape ‘fashion’. In this group, the ingredient list of Pepso.Co’s Lay’s chips with ‘barbecue flavour’ should be highlighted. (5) The smoke flavourings (present in the ‘bacon flavour’ version) are not explicitly mentioned, but seem to reside under the generic term ‘flavours’.
Even dried fruit is sprinkled with smoke aromas. We found three examples.
A few cases also emerge among ready meals.
And even among spices (where the alternative without these aromas is not lacking).
Organic, strictly free of smoking flavours
The absence of organic products from the tables above is not random. Organic foods can in fact use only two strictly natural sources of flavourings:
– natural aromatic preparations, i.e. substances obtained from foods by physical, enzymatic or microbiological processes
– natural flavoring substances, made from sources of animal, vegetable or microbiological origin using physical, enzymatic or microbiological processes. (5)
Marta Strinati
Footnotes
(1) The market investigation was conducted in Rome (Italy) between 15 and 17 July 2024 on manufacturers’ websites, food e-commerce platforms and supermarkets
(2) Marta Strinati. Genotoxic smoke flavourings, the EFSA opinion. 16.11.23. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade).
(3) Marta Strinati. Genotoxic smoke flavourings. No protection in the EU. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade).
(4) Codex Alimentarius. International food standards of FAO and WHO. STANDARD FOR SMOKED FISH, SMOKE-FLAVOURED FISH AND SMOKE-DRIED FISH CXS 311- 2013 Adopted in 2013. Amended in 2016, 2018. https://www.fao.org/fao-who-codexalimentarius/sh-proxy/en/?lnk=1&url=https%253A%252F%252Fworkspace.fao.org%252Fsites%252Fcodex%252FStandards%252FCXS%2B311-2013%252FCXS_311e.pdf
(5) Reg. (EU) 2018/848/, art. 30, paragraph 5 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/IT/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32018R0848
(5) The list of ingredients of Lay’s barbecue flavored French fries: Potatoes, Vegetable oils (sunflower, corn and rapeseed in variable proportions), Barbecue flavoring [flavourings, sugar, smoked glucose, salt, smoked salt, potato starch, acidifier (acid citric), spices (chilli), coloring (paprika extract)]
Professional journalist since January 1995, he has worked for newspapers (Il Messaggero, Paese Sera, La Stampa) and periodicals (NumeroUno, Il Salvagente). She is the author of journalistic surveys on food, she has published the book "Reading labels to know what we eat".
