Simultaneous HPLC-DAD determination of seven intense sweeteners in foodstuffs and pharmaceuticals using a core-shell particle column

•HPLC-DAD allows for the simultaneous detection of 7 different sweeteners.•No difficult sample preparation steps are required with the proposed method.•The core-shell particle column allows an effective separation.•Liquid, semi-liquid and solid samples can be analyzed by the proposed method.•Data can be used to calculate the estimated daily intake of sweeteners. As diabetes and obesity have become an epidemic across the world, sweetener compounds are commonly used due to medical need and aesthetic worries. Because of legal limitations and synergistic effects, sweeteners are used together; as a result, their simultaneous determination has become a current topic. A novel HPLC method for simultaneous determination of acesulfame-K, saccharin, aspartame, alitame, neohesperidin dihydrochalcone, rebaudioside-A and neotame in various matrices was described. The proposed method was applied using a core-shell (superficially porous) silica particle column as a stationary phase, and a mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile, phosphate buffer and water. The method provided limits of detection in the range of 0.03–1.12 mg L−1, with recoveries between 95.69–103.99 % and precision better than 1.90 %. The developed method was successfully applied to 65 different commercial foodstuffs and pharmaceutical products by using easy to perform sample preparation applications, including steps such as simple dissolution, dilution and filtration. It was found that none of the analyzed food samples was above the legally imposed limits and contained no alitame, that was not allowed to be used. It was also observed that the results were in accordance with the product label information and did not exceed the limit values for foods.