The survey of the contents and properties of food flavoring substances to verify JECFA specifications was conducted. Two hundred food flavoring substances which had no official specifications in Japan and had measured data of 3 or more lots in commerce were selected from the survey in descending order of its use volume in 2010 in Japan. The JECFA’s specification values, ie. the content (Assay min %), acid value, melting point, congealing point, refractive index, or the specific gravity of these flavoring substances were compared with the corresponding measured values of the products in commerce. The results revealed that 69 flavoring substances are not in line with the JECFA specifications regarding one or more specific items. In addition, forty substances have some inappropriate specifications that the measured value is specified at the upper or the lower limit of the specifications, or the specifications of the melting points in terms of the property of the substances are selected under the room temperature. We made the guidelines to set the specifications and drafted specifications based on the established guideline and the measured values for the 109 substances. We concluded that the established draft of specifications appropriately enables to control the quality of flavoring substances based on the actual condition.
