Defination of a Fat Spread

According to PFA, a ‘fat spread’ means a product in the form of a water-in-oil emulsion of an aqueous phase and a fat phase of edible oils and fats excluding animal body fats. It may be a ‘milk-fat’ spread (fat content, exclusively milk fat),‘mixed-fat’ spread (based on a mixture of milk fat and one or more of hydrogenated or un-hydrogenated refined edible vegetable oils or interesterfied fat), or a ‘vegetable fat’ spread. A fat spread may contain edible common salt not exceeding 2% by weight in the aqueous phase; milk solids-not-fat, lactic acid, butyric acid, valeric acid, cinnamon oil and ethyl butyrate as flavouring agent up to 0.08% by weight;diacetyl may be added as flavouring agent not exceeding 4.0 ppm; permitted emulsifiers and stabilizers; permitted antioxidants (BHA or TBHQ) not exceeding 0.02% of the fat content of the spread; permitted class II preservatives, namely sorbic acid and its sodium, potassium and calcium salts (calculated as sorbic acid),or benzoic acid and its sodium and potassium salts (calculated as benzoic acid),singly or in combination, not ex-ceeding 1000 ppm by weight; and sequestering agents. It may contain annatto and/or caro-tene as colouring agents. It shall contain starch not less than 100 ppm and not more than 150 ppm. It shall be free from mineral oil and wax. Vegetable fat spread shall contain raw or refined sesame oil(Til oil) in sufficient quantity so that when separated fat is mixed with refined groundnut oil in the proportion of 20:80, the red colour produced by Baudouin test shall not be lighter than 2.5 red units in 1 cm cell on the Lovibond scale.Low-Fat Spreads

It shall also conform to the following standards:

i) Fat - Not more than 80% and not less than 40% by weight.

ii) Moisture - Not more than 56% and not less than 16% by weight.

iii) Melting point of ex-tracted fat (capillary slip method) in case of vegetable fat spread - Not more than 370C.

iv) Unsaponifiable matter of extracted fat

a) In case of milk-fat and mixed-fat spreads - Not more than 1.0 % by weight.
b) In case of vegetable fat spread - Not more than 1.5%

v) Acid value of extracted fat - Not more than 0.5.

The vegetable fat spread shall contain not less than 25 IU synthetic vitamin A per gram at the time of packaging and shall show a positive test for vitamin A, when tested by antimony trichloride (Carr-Price reagents as per IS 5886-1970).