Introduction

1.1 INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION

In the time since the original edition appeared various changes have taken place that have rendered some parts of the original edition out of date. There is now a much greater importance being placed on nutrition, particularly obesity and related diseases. This has led to a new chapter on nutrition covering the components of food, nutrition labelling, obesity, reducing diets, and special religious and ethical diets.

In terms of ingredients the use of hydrogenated vegetable fats has ceased to be replaced by fractionated vegetable fats. Public demand for natural colours and flavours has increased markedly. Some long established products have changed from synthetic colours and flavours to natural ones. The demand for additive free food has led to the production of products that are described as 'clean label', i.e. they have no added colours or flavours. The performance of natural colours has improved markedly. Where it was once easy to spot products with natural colours since they only came in pastel shades, they now have the same bright intense shades produced by synthetic colours.

A new whipping agent has appeared on the market: the protein extracted from potatoes. This provides a whipping agent that should be acceptable to vegans and vegetarians while avoiding the problems of existing whipping agents. The aerated products chapter has been appropriately amended.

The range of permitted bulk and intense sweeteners has increased since the appearance of the first edition. This should allow better ranges of sugar free confectionery to be made.

1.2 DEFINITIONS AND ORIGINS OF SUGAR CONFECTIONERY

The confectionery industry divides confectionery into three classes: chocolate confectionery, flour confectionery and sugar confectionery. Chocolate confectionery is obviously products made out of chocolate. Flour confectionery covers items made out of flour. Traditionally, and confusingly, this covers both long life products, such as biscuits, in addition to short-life bakery products. Sugar confectionery covers the rest of confectionery. In spite of the above definition, liquorice, which does contain flour, is considered to be sugar confectionery. The confectionery industry has created many confectionery products that are a mixture of categories, e.g. a flour or sugar confectionery centre that is covered with chocolate. There is another category that is sometimes referred to as 'sugar-free sugar confectionery'. This oxymoron refers to products that resemble sugar confectionery products but which are made without any sugars. The usual reason for making these products is to satisfy special dietary needs. A better name might be 'sugar confectionery analogues'.

The manufacture of confectionery is not a science-based industry. Confectionery products have traditionally been created by skilled craftsman confectioners working empirically, and scientific understanding of confectionery products has been acquired retroactively. Historically, sugar confectionery does have a link with one of the science-based industries – pharmaceuticals. In the eighteenth century, sugar confectionery products were made by pharmacists as pleasant products because the active pharmaceutical products were unpleasant. The two industries continue to share some technology, such as making sugar tablets and applying panned sugar coatings. There are products that although apparently confectionery are legally medicines. This usually applies to cough sweets and similar products. In the United Kingdom these products are regulated under the Medicines Act and require a product licence. This means that all the ingredients for the product are specified and cannot easily be altered. The dividing line between confectionery and medicines is not uniform in all countries.

One reason that confectionery making is not a science-based industry is the very long product life. For example the Rowntree's fruit pastille was invented in 1879 and was first marketed in 1881. This product is still one of the leading sugar confectionery lines in the UK today (2018), and it appears that it will continue to be sold well into the 21st century. The man who invented it, Claud August Gaget, knew nothing of proteins or the peptide bond. In 1879 very little was known about proteins in scientific circles so there was no scientific basis from which to work.

1.3 FOOD LAW

Legislation affects all parts of the food industry. In the United Kingdom, modern food law developed from the Food and Drugs Acts. Such legislation came about after an outbreak of arsenic poisoning among beer drinkers, the cause of which turned out to be the glucose that had been used in making the beer – the glucose had been prepared by hydrolysing starch with sulfuric acid. The acid had been made using the lead chamber process from iron pyrites that contained arsenic as an impurity. The approach subsequently adopted was that all foods should be 'of the substance and quality demanded'. This was obviously intended to cover any future problems with other contamination, and not necessarily with arsenic. Other countries, particularly those whose legal systems follow Roman rather than Anglo-Saxon law, have more prescriptive laws.

The British approach is to allow any ingredient that is not poisonous unless, of course, the ingredient is banned. Additives are regulated by a positive list approach: unless the substance is on the permitted list it cannot be used. There are anomalies where a substance can be legal in foods but which is not permitted to be described in a particular way. An example of this is the substance glycherrzin, which is naturally present in liquorice and has a sweet flavour. It would be illegal to describe it as a sweetener as it is not on the permitted sweetener list. Glycherrzin is permitted as a flavouring, however, and can be added to a food, which makes the overall product taste sweeter than it would without the addition. Conversely, the protein thaumatin is permitted as an intense sweetener yet, in practice, it has been found that thaumatin has more potential as a flavouring agent. It would have been much easier and cheaper to obtain approval for thaumatin as a flavouring rather than as a sweetener.

The British system does not automatically give approval to new ingredients merely because they are natural. This is in contrast with the position in some other countries – there will always be grey areas. One example is the position of the oligo-fructose polymers that are naturally present in chicory. Chicory is undoubtedly a traditional food ingredient; however, the oligo-fructoses extracted from it cannot necessarily be...