REVIEW OF NATIONAL REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS FOR PROPOLIS QUALITY FOR COMPLIANCE WITH INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS

Abstract

Given the growing demand among consumers of the international market for propolis, it is important to review the compliance of national documentation with international, particularly the leading countries in the production and processing of this product. Integration and adaptation of national legislation to the norms of the world community legislation also requires revision of approaches to the quality and safety of propolis. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to analyse the current international and national regulatory legal acts of the leading countries of the world, which play a key role in the international market for the production and sale of propolis in terms of safety and quality of propolis. Authors used the Torraco method to analyse and synthesise scientific and regulatory data; the Springer scientific and metric database and the Google Scholar search. The materials included regulatory documents of Ukraine, EU, Brazil, Argentina, Poland, Mexico, East African region. It was established that the criteria for assessing the quality of propolis in international regulatory and technical documentation are organoleptic (appearance, consistency, colour, smell, taste), physicochemical (dry matter, total ash content, wax, resin) microbiological (yeast, moulds, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus, Candida albicans, Paenibacillus, Salmonella) indicators of biological activity (flavonoids, oxidation, phenols, antioxidant activity, ethanol-soluble resins) and contamination (heavy metals, pesticide and antibiotic residues, radionuclides). The study revealed the non-compliance of the current regulatory document in Ukraine with the requirements of international regulations, namely in terms of: phenol content, ethanol and water-soluble resins, dry matter; total ash content; antioxidant activity; colony-forming units. It was determined that in Ukraine propolis is not divided into categories depending on wax impurities; the ambient temperature is not accounted for when determining the consistency index; botanical origin and methods of its selection are also not considered when assessing organoleptic properties. The approach for regulating the propolis market in Ukraine is substantiated as such that will contribute to the formation of added value for raw propolis when grouped by purpose and method of production and processing. The materials of the article are of practical value for the formation of new and harmonization of existing normative and technical regulations on the quality of propolis and can be applied by the working party on beekeeping development under the Ministry of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine