Background: The use of tartrazine as an unauthorized synthetic color in food is a consumer health concern. In Iran, most studies have employed the Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) to detect any fraud in food colors. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the presence of tartrazine in four types of foods commonly consumed by children in Shiraz, southern Iran using TLC and compare the results with those obtained through highperformance liquid chromatography (HPLC).
Methods: One hundred and fifty food samples with yellow and orange colors, including 20 samples of freeze pop, 25 samples of ice cream, 57 samples of jelly, 48 samples of candy, were collected from the supermarkets in Shiraz, Iran. In TLC method, color extraction was performed by the white wool method.
Results: According to the findings of the TLC method, 118 samples (78.67%) contained synthetic food colors, while 32 (21.33%) food samples did not. Among the samples, 8 (5.33%) contained only tartrazine, and 14 (9.33%) had tartrazine together with other synthetic colors. The HPLC revealed that 127 samples (84.64%) contained synthetic colors, and 23 samples (15.36%) did not. Only 11 (7.33%) samples had tartrazine, while102 samples (68.00%) had tartrazine in addition to other synthetic colors.
Conclusion: The finding of TLC and HPLC methods were differed due to the lower detection limit of the TLC method. Therefore, it is necessary to use more accurate methods such as HPLC to detect fraud in food colors.