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AGRI-FOOD QUALITY CONTROL LABORATORY

CIRAM laboratories offer reliable and rapid quality control of agri-food products, in order to identify possible adulteration or to authenticate naturalness or geographical origin. You can thus test the quality of your supplies or verify the biobased content. Thanks to our teams of scientists, we measure, verify, and certify your products in 10 working days maximum.

Laboratories specialized in agri-food quality control

Quality control and detection of fraud and counterfeit in food additives have become essential steps in the industrial process. Today, with environmental issues, food manufacturers are increasingly turning to green chemistry and the use of biobased products.

Our laboratories, specialized in carbon-14 measurement, analyze your food products, in order to authenticate a natural product or detect adulteration by the addition of synthetic product. Moreover, stable isotope analysis allows us to verify the geographical origin of an agri-food product.

CIRAM, uses the standards
ASTM D6866-22
EN 16640 :2017
ISO 16620-2 :2019
EN 16785 :2016
ISO 21644 :2022

Analysis of essential oils

Radiocarbon analysis of essential oils will differentiate natural from synthetic components. But the carbon-14 analysis is not only qualitative, it will also measure the concentration of biobased carbon compared to petroleum-based carbon. CIRAM’s scientific teams are, in fact, able to identify an adulteration of only 1%.

The quality of ingredients and their natural origin are increasingly emphasized. CIRAM laboratories offer you a reliable and fast service for the analysis of your food additives.

Flavor analysis

Flavors and fragrances are critical issues in the food and beverage industry. Natural variants are much more expensive, so it is very important to evaluate and verify your raw materials and inputs.

Radiocarbon analysis is a natural fit to identify the naturalness of a flavor. The carbon-14 concentration of a synthetic flavoring is 0, while a naturally occurring flavoring will have a radiocarbon concentration of 100, so one will easily differentiate a petrochemically derived vanilla flavoring from a natural vanilla extract. However, one will be obliged to couple radiocarbon analysis with stable carbon isotope analysis to differentiate vanillin from vanilla from lignin, for example.

OUR LABORATORY QUALITY CONTROL SERVICE

The CIRAM scopes

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Carbon 14 measurement, at the heart of quality control

It is the carbon-14 concentration that will define the biobased carbon content of agri-food products. This radiocarbon analysis can be used at each stage of the manufacturing process. It is from this analysis in one of our laboratories that we will define the percentage of natural ingredient. With carbon 14, we also detect the addition of a synthetic product or adulteration.

To ensure an accurate and complete service, CIRAM laboratories comply with the following standards for its quality control in the agri-food sector:

  • ASTM D6866-22: this is the international standard for the analysis of the content of biobased product by the radiocarbon method.
  • EN 16640:2017: this European standard specifies the method used to determine the biobased carbon content with the carbon-14 measurement
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All our services for quality control

Thanks to the analysis of carbon 14 contained in your food additives (essential oil, flavoring, perfumes, dyes…), we are able to:

  • Measure: the percentage of natural products (biobased products from an animal or plant material) and the percentage of synthetic ingredients (petrochemicals). With this measure, you will ensure that your suppliers keep their commitments and you improve your quality control;
  • Testing: we conduct a compliance test of raw materials in accordance with the rules and standards in force for food additives;
  • Authenticate: our laboratories, after chemical analysis and isotopic analysis, can authenticate a product from organic farming.

Biobased food industry experts

All of the above rules attest to the quality of our laboratories and certify the reliability of our analyses in the agri-food sector.

CRIAM laboratories are specialized in the analysis of the biobased content of your agri-food products and food additives. Thanks to radiocarbon analysis, we measure, test and authenticate your essential oils, flavors, fragrances…

For more information on a feasibility study, on a quality control, we offer a personalized support for each request. Contact us, we will answer you as soon as possible.

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