Validation and determination of steviol glycosides in processed food products

Steviol glycosides have gained attention as low-calorie sweeteners. The acceptable daily intake (ADI) for steviol glycosides is 4 mg/kg bw/day, requiring continuous exposure assessments. To generate occurrence data for exposure evaluations, this study validated a high-sensitivity HPLC- variable wavelength detector (VWD) analytical method for quantifying five steviol glycosides and applied the method to processed food products distributed in South Korea. The limit of detection (LOD) was in the range of 0.2–0.5 mg/L, and the limit of quantification (LOQ) was in the range of 0.7–1.5 mg/L. The measurement uncertainty was evaluated to improve the reliability of the analytical results. Among the steviol glycosides analyzed, rebaudioside A and D were the most (96.8%) and least (11.7%) frequently detected compounds, respectively, in processed foods. All negative samples were confirmed by UHPLC–MS/MS analysis. The analytical method and monitoring results presented in this study are expected to contribute to prospective exposure assessments.