Dive Brief:
- This week, leaders from the maple syrup industry held a press conference in Richmond, VT to addressmisleading maple syrup ingredient claims作为跟进上周寄出的一封信中Food and Drug Administration. The producers asked the FDA to investigate products that claim to contain maple syrup.
- At thepress conference,held by the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers' Association, industry members said food products from oatmeal to ice cream claim to have maple syrup, when in fact, many do not list the ingredient in their labels.
- 这个行业想要确保枫糖浆是实际ly in the products, as opposed to artificial flavors or colors.
Dive Insight:
Too many commercial products claim to be maple-flavored but don't use the ingredient, Craig Waldron, president, Commercial Maple Syrup Producers of Michigan, toldMichigan Radio. "There's ... maple oatmeals and bacons and all kinds of things," Waldron said. "And some of those products may have real maple in them and it's really not fair to the ones that are using the real stuff."
Echoing that sentiment is chairman of the Maple Industry Committee of the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association, Roger Brown.
"My main beef is put syrup in it if you're going to call it syrup," said Brown, an owner of Slopeside Syrup. "My secondary beef is if you're going to call it a maple thing, put enough maple in it that it's a maple product and that it's not a corn syrup product that has some minuscule amount of syrup in it."
The letter sent to the FDA was frommaple syrup groupsin the states of Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont and Wisconsin; as well as from the International Maple Syrup Institute and the North American Maple Syrup Council.
The FDA has indicated it will reply directly to the letter writers.
