DSM announces Australian approval for PreventASe

DSM Food Specialties says PreventASe has been given regulatory approval for its use as a processing aid in Australia and New Zealand.

This news follows similar authorization from the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health earlier this year and US, French, Danish, Mexican and Russian approval in 2007.

Increasingly being used by manufacturers in Europe, the US, this latest approval for PreventASe opens up a key market; clearly demonstrating its commercial viability and international application as an effective method of acrylamide mitigation.

The approval comes as a result of DSM Food Specialties’ application to the Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) to use asparaginase sourced from Aspergillus niger as a processing aid in food production to reduce acrylamide formation.

The company says PreventASe is proven to be able to mitigate the formation of acrylamide in certain foods by as much as 90%.

The PreventASe enzyme is a so-called “asparaginase enzyme preparation” from the Aspergillus niger micro-organism (A. niger).

The enzyme converts one of the precursors of acrylamide, asparagine, into another naturally occurring amino acid, aspartate.

As a result, asparagine is not available anymore for the chemical reaction that forms acrylamide when carbohydrate-containing foods, such as bread, biscuits, crackers, processed potato products and cereals, are being heated.