Food legislation and the scope for increased use of near-critical fluid extraction operations in the food, flavouring and pharmaceutical industries

The food, flavouring and pharmaceutical industries have become increasingly safety conscious over the years and the safety of both producers and consumers is now a major requirement of any new product. This is evidenced by the complexity of the testing procedures which are now applied to new products prior to their introduction into the market-place, particularly in the pharmaceutical industry. It is not uncommon for a new pharmaceutical product to take 10 years to come to the market-place. The situation is slightly less rigorous for the food industry, but the trend is towards adopting similar standards to those presently applied to pharmaceutical products.