Cawthron Analytical Services has just completed validation of new cost-effective, rapid, and reliable methods for Vitamin B analyses in functional dairy powders including infant formula.
This rapid test capable of analysing more then one B Vitamin at a time is not currently available in New Zealand. It offers manufacturers a new, fast, reliable and cost effective way of ensuring the levels of vitamins in their product meet specifications and label claims can be made with confidence.
Many of the original methods used for identifying the composition of food including micro nutrients, were based around analyses of the more traditional food ingredients. These staple food products are not as complex as many of the food products that are developed today.
Vitamins in food represent a complex analytical problem for several reasons:
- Due to their chemical structure and properties, it is extremely difficult to develop a ‘general’ method suitable for the simultaneous determination of several vitamins in food
- Most modern foods themselves are very complex matrices; and some vitamins are present in very low concentrations
For the determination of water soluble vitamins, various methods such as microbiological assays, spectrometric assays, capillary electrophoresis, HPLC and gas-chromatography have been reported. However, the sensitivity and specificity of these methods is often inadequate.
The methods are often based on tedious and not completely specific assays. Extraction procedures in these methods involve pre-treatment through complex chemical reactions followed by individual methods for the determination of each vitamin.
In the last few years, the development of liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC/MS) offered significant advantages of increased sensitivity, specificity and the ability to analyse highly polar compounds such as water-soluble vitamins. Recently, ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) instrumentation, which can operate at ultra-high pressure, has also been applied. The advantage of UPLC is that quantitative response is improved and the analysis time can be shortened by raising the f low rates, thus allowing a higher sample throughput. Therefore the UPLC system coupled with MS system with a triple quadruple analyser represent the method of choice for fast, sensitive and reliable simultaneous determination of water-soluble vitamins in food.
Cawthron has specialised in bringing the power of UPLC/MS/MS technology to a wide range of analytical problems. This technology is now being used for Vitamin B group analyses, enabling us to bring more reliable, cost effective, and fully IANZ accredited analytical methods to customers.
For further information:
Augusta van Wijk
Tel: 03 548 2319 ext 329
Email: [email protected]
