Voluntary fortification with folic acid in Spain: An updated food composition database

• In Spain only voluntary fortification of foods with folic acid (FA) is allowed.
• A food composition database for these products has been developed and updated.
• Label declarations as well as analytical FA and folate data were collected over 3 years.
• Fortified products mainly provide 35% of FA Daily Reference Intakes per serving.

Folic acid (FA) is a key vitamin in the prevention of many diseases including neural tube defects. In Spain, only voluntary FA food fortification is allowed and there is a lack of compositional data to assess the contribution of these products to population’s dietary folate intakes. Since 2007, our group has been compiling and updating a FA fortified food composition database. FA levels were obtained from retailers in Madrid and information provided by manufacturers. FA was also quantified by an affinity chromatography-HPLC method. In the present study we recorded 375 products. Our results show a high variability in the declared FA levels amongst different products, and food groups, which is also dependant on the commercial brand. FA overages are commonly added by manufacturers to some fortified products. FA content label claims are missing in 64% of products. This database is a useful tool to manage FA fortified foods data but it is necessary to continuously update it for the sound evaluation and monitoring of population’s FA dietary intakes.