The Food & Grocery Council is welcoming a significant drop in concentration of acrylamide in potato crisps, and says it will continue to work with industry to find ways of lowering its levels in other foods, CEO Katherine Rich said yesterday.

She is responding to the release of a report - Acrylamide in New Zealand Food and Updated Exposure Assessment - prepared by the Institute of Environmental Science & Research (ESR) for the Food Safety Authority (now the Ministry for Primary Industries), reported PotatoPro.

Acrylamide is a naturally occurring substance which can be a by-product of cooking starchy foods at high temperatures.

The ESR assessment measured acrylamide in foods including potato crisps, hot chips, oven fries, bread, biscuits, breakfast cereals, muffins, fried rice, noodles, cereal-based snack foods, peanut butter and nuts. It was instigated at the request of the Food & Grocery Council (FGC) and undertaken last year.

It found that acrylamide concentrations in potato crisps "decreased significantly" when compared to the 2006 study, while potato hot chips and wheat biscuit cereals concentrations were "very similar".

Mrs Rich says she is pleased to see that steps taken by potato chip manufacturers have resulted in the concentration of acrylamide decreasing by 63% since 2006.

Read the full report at http://www.foodsafety.govt.nz/elibrary/industry/acrylamide-in-nz-food-updated-exposure-assessment.pdf