Determination of food preservatives and saccharin by high-performance liquid chromatography

The quantitative analysis of benzoic and sorbic acid, methyl, ethyl and propyl esters of p-hydroxybenzoic acid and saccharin in foodstuffs is described. These compounds are quantitatively extracted with disposable clean-up columns packed with Extrelut and simultaneously determined by high-performance liquid chromatography on reversed-phase columns. Complicated matrices such as cheese, cake, ketchup and chocolate were tested and recoveries were generally better than 95% in the concentration ranges normally used in the food industry.