Design and preparation of market baskets of EU commercial baby foods for the assessment of infant exposure to food chemicals and to their effects

Raffaela Piccinelli (1) , Marchela Pandelova (2) , Cinzia Le Donne (1) , Marika Ferrari (1) , Karl-Werner Schramm (2) , Catherine Leclercq (1)

1 Applied Sciences
2 Institute of Ecological Chemistry [Neuherberg]

The assessment of acute and chronic dietary exposure to contaminants in baby foods is needed to ensure healthy infant growth. Monthly EU market baskets of commercial baby foods were designed for the first 9 months of life by the "babyfood" study group of the CASCADE Network of Excellence for the specific purpose of assessing exposure to potentially toxic substances in infants fed with such foods. The present paper reports the different steps that led to the preparation of monthly pooled samples of commercial baby foods ("Infant formulae and follow-on formulae", and "Other baby foods") that may constitute the extreme case of the diet for an infant that would not be breast fed at all. Several market baskets were generated for an "average EU infant" and for infants of 4 selected countries (Italy, Sweden, Spain and Slovakia), fed with either milk infant formulae, soy infant formulae or hypoallergenic infant formulae and weaned (at the 5th month) with commercial baby foods and beverages available on the EU market. Market share data of 2007 for baby foods were used to design the baskets. Holding companies and the name of all their products were identified. Monthly diets for EU infants were elaborated in terms of food categories (e.g. infant cereals) of typologies of products (e.g. infant cereals without gluten) and of specific product. The number of baskets generated was 30 for "Infant formulae and follow-on formulae" (including 62 products) and 13 for "Other baby foods" (including 35 products). These market baskets were designed to be used for the determination of certain contaminants and nutrients in the diet of EU infants and for the assessment of their effects on infant health.

Mots clés: Life Sciences

Raffaela Piccinelli, Marchela Pandelova, Cinzia Le Donne, Marika Ferrari, Karl-Werner Schramm, et al.. Design and preparation of market baskets of EU commercial baby foods for the assessment of infant exposure to food chemicals and to their effects. Food Additives and Contaminants, 2010, 27 (10), pp.1337. ⟨10.1080/19440049.2010.489913⟩. ⟨hal-00608722⟩