AHPA Adopts New Extract Labeling Trade Requirement, Guidance

(Food Ingredients First)

In October 2008 the American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) adopted a trade requirement on how the word “extract” may be used in labeling of herbal ingredients, and established at that time a restriction against the use of the word extract to describe dehydrated plant materials that have not been subject to additional processing other than size reduction, such as cutting or milling. This initial policy was adopted in response to reports of dehydrated but otherwise unprocessed herbs, such as hoodia stem (Hoodia gordonii), being marketed for example as “Hoodia gordonii extract 20:1.”

The AHPA Board of Trustees voted March 11 to revise this original trade requirement to also address the use of extract ratios (such as “20:1” in the above example). The new policy therefore also prohibits the use of such ratios on herbal ingredients that are not processed by one or another extraction process. Click here to read the new rules recommended by the APHA.