EU set to tighten safety controls on India guar gum

By Jeremy Smith

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union is poised to tighten import controls on an Indian gum used as an additive in foods ranging from yoghurt and soft cheese to bread as way to eliminate dioxin contamination, officials said on Thursday.

Earlier this month, the EU finalised a report based on an urgent visit that a team of its inspectors made to India in October to see how the country was handling dioxin contamination cases in guar gum, an additive extracted from the guar bean.

That report was fairly critical, saying India's own investigation had been insufficient to provide conclusions or give enough evidence of the contamination cause. It also worried guar exporters and sent Indian guar futures sharply lower.

Now, national EU experts have agreed stricter controls to minimise dioxin levels by ensuring that guar gum imports do not contain more than 0.01 milligrams per kg of the carcinogen pentachlorophenol (PCP), a chemical widely used as a pesticide.

"With availability of sodium pentachlorophenate and its use in the guar gum industry, and with a largely self-regulated industry, there are inadequate controls in place to ensure that this contamination does not occur again," a draft European Commission regulation said.

The regulation will enter force once it has passed through the Commission's own internal procedures and is then published in the EU's daily Official Journal. No date has been set but officials said that process should take place this month.

Cargoes of compound foods and feed materials that contain at least 10 percent guar gum originating in or shipped from India will have to be certified by an accredited laboratory to show that PCP levels do not exceed the EU's maximum limit.

If there is no certificate, the cargo will be blocked at the EU port of arrival for up to 60 days until the importer gets it tested, the draft regulation says.