Determination of Fructans in Infant, Adult, and Pediatric Nutritional Formulas: Single-Laboratory Validation, First Action 2016.06.

A method for fructan analysis designed to comply with AOAC Standard Method Performance Requirements (SMPR®) 2014.002 is described. It is closely related to existing methods for fructan analysis, including AOAC 997.08 and 999.03, as well as a method previously published by Cuany et al. This new method achieves LOQ of 0.03% fructan on a ready-to-feed (RTF) basis with mean recoveries ranging from 93 to 108% in the presence of up to 9% sucrose (even at the 0.03% level of fructan). Repeatability ranged from 1.09 to 3.67%. Intermediate precision ranged from 2.46 to 6.79%. Sample preparation for quantitative analysis is simplified compared to some of the existing methodologies. The method incorporates a qualitative profile analysis to determine fructan size category. This allows assignment of appropriate correction factors without independent knowledge of fructan type.