Acrylamide Lawsuit settled by Potato Chips Compaines in California

by Anuradha Agarwal for Dream Visions    August 02, 2008

Frito-lays and other two companies agree to reduce amount of acrylamide in their products in a settlement of a state lawsuit, Attorney General Jerry Brown said Friday.

Acrylamide is cancer causing chemical.

Bill lockyer, predecessor of Jerry Brown sued  3 years ago that potato chips companies failed to aware consumers about side effects of  acrylamide.

Beside Frito-lay, the other companies which agreed to reduce acrylamide levels in their products are Kettle foods and Lance Inc. In another settlement last week, Heinz agreed to cut in half the acrylamide levels in Ore-Ida frozen french fries and tater tots and pay $600,000 in penalties and costs, the state said.

According to Jerry Brown, this is victory for public health and safety in California.

Source Of Acrylamide in Potato:-                

When potato and other starchy foods are cooked at high temperatures then acrylamide produced. It is used in industries for treating sweage.It's presence to food was unknown when California added this chemical as a cancer causing substances in 1990.

Swedish scientists first discovered the presence of acrylamide in food in 2002. California listed the chemical as a cancer-causing substance under Proposition 65.

 Source SFC

Procter and Gamble already agreed to reduce acrylamide content of potato chips by fifty percent. McDonald and KFC agreed to post warnings about acrylamide.

The settlement requires the potato chip producers to reduce acrylamide to 275 parts per billion in three years, a low enough level to avoid a Prop. 65 warning label. Frito –lay have to reduce 20 percent and Kettle Chips have to reduce 87% of acrylamide to meet the proposition 65, Brown's office said. Little or no reduction will be needed for most Cape Cod chips, but one product, Cape Cod Robust Russets, will require a warning label, the attorney general said.

The companies also agreed to pay nearly $2 million in penalties and costs

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

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