UNSCRAMBLE THE NATIONAL STANDARD FOR FORTIFIED WHEAT FLOUR
January 24th, 2008
¡¡
Good morning ladies and gentleman, it is my pleasure to study the new published National Standard for Fortified Wheat Flour (The National Standard) with all of you. As a member of the Standard Administration Committee, I engaged into the process of set up the standard and evaluate the National Standard. I would like to share my experience about the technical issues and other relative background information about the constitution process of the National Standard for Fortified Wheat Flour.
The effective date of the National Standard was January 1, 2008, and it was published in October 16, 2007. First of all, lets me to present the back ground of Fortified Flour. China is the largest country for the production and consumption of wheat flour. The production level of wheat flour in China of wheat flour is 16%-18% of the world¡¯s total amount. This proportion is relatively huge. Wheat flour is a main food resource in Chinese people like rice, and it is also a basic food resource. Set wheat flour as the media of micronutrient is the experience the countries who successfully fortified wheat flours. Fortified wheat flours are economic and effective. Furthermore, fortified flour is a good main food for people to choose.
The history background of fortified flour in China is long. According to pervious situation, the number of wheat flour modification mills is huge, and the case of all those mills is complex. The size and centralization of production of mills in China is still not comparable to the mills in developed countries even the history of development of mills in China is long. However, we still get improved when compare with pervious years. There are 3159 mills are counted into the list of the Statistics of China. The total annual flour production and modification ability is 94.732 million tones. There are 2014 mills whose flour productivity is above 100 tones, and it is 63.8% of total mills. Furthermore, there are 603 mills whose flour productivity is between 100-200 tones, and it is 19.1% of total mills. Moreover, there are 371 mills whose flour productivity is between 200-400 tones, and it is 11.7% of total mills. In addition, there are 136 mills whose flour productivity is between 400-1000 tones, and it is 4.3% of total mills. Finally, there are 35 mills whose productivity is above 1000 tones, and it is 1.1% of total mills[1]. I remember several decades ago, the flour productivity of largest mill in China is only 200 tones, but now there are 35 mills in China who can product more 1000 tones of flours. According to the trend of the development of mills, mass production mills are extremely helpful for us to develop fortified wheat flour.
There are 296 mills are owned by the government of China, and it is 9.4% of total mills. Furthermore, there are 31 mills are founded by investors from Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and foreign countries, and it is 1% of total mills. Moreover, most of mills in China are private companies. There totally 2832 private mills and it is 89.6% of total mills. Moreover, government owned mills are doing reformation, and private mills are the leading mills in the Chinese mill industry.
According to the statistics of flour production level, the amount of flour which produced in 2006 is 43.458 millions tones. Furthermore, 18.717 million tones of them with top degree of quality[2], 12.506 million tones with second degree of quality[3], 4.568 million tones with standard degree of quality[4], and 5.12 million tone of specially used flour[5]. Moreover, fortified flour is partially included in the total amount, but they were not listed in the charts of the Statistics Bureau of China. I personally believe that they will be listed in the chars of the Statistics Bureau of China after the publish of the National Standard. According to my own calculation, the proportion of fortified flour is relatively small. Furthermore, mills who can produce and process more than one million tones[6] of flour are widely distributed in Henan, Shandong, Jiangsu, Hebei, Anhui, Shaanxi, Hubei, Guangdong, Xinjiang, and Sichuan province. Furthermore, there are several flour production provinces which include Shandong, Jiangsu, Hebei and Anhui. Moreover, there are various types of flour. Flours produced in northern provinces such as Henan, Shandong and Hebei contain more protein, and flours produced in southern provinces such as Jiangsu and Anhui contain less protein. The total production value of flour created by mills is 91.82 billions Chinese RMB Yuans, the total sale of flour is 9.252 billion Chinese RMB Yuans, the value of flour which exported is 0.63 billion Chinese RMB Yuans, the profitability get increased, and the profit margin is 11.5%. In addition, the application of specially used flour is higher than normal flour. The statistics came from 2006, and it was increased compare with 2005. The rate of gross is 6.3%, 16.1%, 10.5%, 17.3%. This is the general background of national standard.
The flour production technology is improving, China now have the ability to develop fortified flour. Producers such as mass production mills get ready to produce fortified flour. According the situation of the market, the quality of people life get improved, and people start pay attention on their nutrition and health, it consequently caused mills started to pay attention on nutrition and health issues of their product. At the same time, the competition in the flour market is getting serious, and mills are trying to get competitive advantage by lower the price of flour with normal flour. It is not the correct way to develop the industry, and there is no creativity for the industry. The market demand for diversified product caused development of fortified flour. Mills would like to supply it, and consumers would like to purchase it. Furthermore, the requirement of nutrition by people is also a factor that caused the development of fortified flour. People focus on nutrition of their diet more and more, and the concepts and knowledge of nutrition are widely accepted by the public. In addition, people focus on the amount of food and cloth more, but now they start focus on the reasonable and balanced nutrition of diet more.
We also learned experience for the publish of the national standard from foreign countries who successfully published mandatory policy for fortified flour which include The United States, Japan, Venezuela and Indonesia. The history of the experience of promoting fortified flour is more than several decades in these countries. It provides advanced experience for China to develop fortified flour.
The observation of the national standard of fortified flour should be a single one. It should be a completed, systematic, scientific and specialized system. Furthermore, the national standard should include quality of the product, resources, and process of production. Moreover, the process, technic, and method of production, method of storage and other chains of problem of fortified flour will be introduced later. Therefore, it is a systematic process.
The national standard includes resource, production process, sale of final product, and chain of the industry. On the other hand, it also covered academic fields which include grow of plant, production, sanitation, food safety, physics, chemistry, and biology. Therefore, it is an integrated system.
The standard of flour that China implemented previously was GB1355-1986. The standard was published in 1987, and it has 21 years history. At the same time, there are several other standards available such as High Gluten Wheat Flour GB/T8607-88, and the Low Gluten Wheat Flour, GB/T8608-88. Furthermore, there were other 9 standards[7] for wheat flour during that period of time. The history of these 9 standards is 14 years. The publish of the new standard in this year will greatly impact the wheat flour industry in our nation. It is different than the pervious standards, and pervious standards need to be modified because they are too obsolete. For example, old standard about technic issues and food safety are obsolete, and they are not connected with international standards. The new national standard which is GB/T21122-2007 will be formally implemented on January 1 2008, and add a important standard for the field of wheat flour system.
The new national standard was based on the standard NO. 1355, it mainly focus on several special characteristics of fortified flour such as nutrition, safety, application, and international adaptability. Furthermore, it also focus on the adaptability and feasibility by mills. if it is not feasible for mills, that mean it is not a successful standard.
A lot of people ask that why we should develop fortified flour. The reason is fortified flour is effective, economic, and safe. It could fill the nutrition gap which was lost during the milling process. The technologies of flour process get improved, and there will be higher quality flour for consumers to choose. For example, the color of flour gets whiter compare to pervious days due to technology improvement. Furthermore, the micronutrients that human body need is added into flour. That is the goal of flour fortification.
The definition of fortified flour is choose the wheat flour that satisfy the requirement of standard GB1355, and add correct types, amount of micronutrients which required by GB14880 into flour. Standard GB14880 is a standard that China used for measure micronutrients that used for fortified food. Furthermore, we also used other standards[8] to measure some other relative issues of fortified flour such as packaging and brand logos. At the same time, the national standard also gives the definition, use of micronutrient, classification of the product level, methods and regulation of examination. Moreover, we also consulted international flour fortification laws as our reference during the constitution process of the national standard.
The national standard also defined the used of nutritional fortification and food additives. For example, the formal chemical name of white colored additive is BPO, and the BPO is not allowed add into fortified flour because it is destructive to nutrients. Furthermore, calcium oxide was allowed to put into flour previously because it cloud make the color of flour become white, and it improve the taste of flour. However, the new national standard clearly pointed out that BPO and calcium oxide is forbidden to add into flour. Moreover, standard GB2760 regulated other additives.
There are also standard for technology in the new national standard. The ash was changed for fortification include fortified flours which calcium and minerals was added in. For example, flour is classified by ash. The ash will be increased if calcium and minerals were added into flour. According to pervious standard, class one flour will become class two flour, and it will violate with our principle. Therefore, we add 0.27% on original standard. For example, the ash of class one was 0.70% originally, and it became 0.97% after fortified calcium and minerals were added in.
The new national standard also influences fortified flour without calcium but with vitamin and other micronutrients, but the influence to fortified flour with out vitamin and other micronutrients is not as huge as the influence to fortified flour with calcium. According to our actual experience, the standard of ash increased 0.02% according to the standard GB1355. it is scientifically meaningful to mills, consumers and supervision departments.
There is a parameter which is very important for fortified flour. It is extremely low when we add micronutrients into flour. It is PPM, which is micro. For example, the number is 3.5 milligrams per kilogram or 2 milligrams per kilogram. We must fully mix it even we just add such a little bit of that into flour. The national standard regulates that the variance must smaller than 10%. Some micronutrients will be reduced as time goes by. For example, folic acid will be broken down once it meets light. Furthermore, class B vitamin will also be reduced if it meets light, high temperature or other bad conditions. There is another regulation in the national standard, which is during the quality guarantee period of time, the loss of micronutrient should not more than 20%, and the actually content of micronutrient should satisfy the standard GB14880.
If the actual content s of micronutrients smaller than the standard BG14880, that will be considered as a non fortified food. For example, your standard of a specific micronutrient is 3-5 milligram, the standard GB14880 is also 3-5 milligram. However, if the actual number of micronutrient is lower than 3-5 milligram in the examination, the food will not be considered as fortified food, and the classification of the food will be lower down. The standard successfully prevented low quality product and guaranteed the safety of fortified flour.
The national standard also clearly pointed out that all micronutrients for fortified flour must be fully mixed, otherwise it will be returned to the mill. It successfully prevent that different bag[9] of fortified flour contain different amount of micronutrients.
Finally, the type, level of quality and the sentence of ¡°Fortified Wheat Flour¡± must be clearly printed on the package and the logo of fortified flour according to the national standard. And the quality guarantee period of fortified flour should be longer than 3 months.
Reference
Di YouQing, Center for Public Nutrition and Development
Text Translation by: Liu, SiHong