[A method for the determination of tartrazine in candies and pudding mixes (author's transl)]

The use of food additives is viewed increasingly from a critical point of view. In some countries, stronger regulations with limitations for the use of synthetic coal-tar dyes are planned or exist already. For that reason, a quantitative method for the determination of tartrazine (E 102) is needed for supervision of food quality. A method is described using as its steps extraction of the dyestuffs from the samples, chromatography on silicagel plates and automatically recorded densitometry. In candies amounts of up to 285 mg tartrazine/kg and in pudding mixes up to 1223 mg tartrazine/kg were found.