A simple method for analysis of vitamin A palmitate in fortified cereal products using direct solvent extraction followed by reversed-phase HPLC with UV detection

[Display omitted] •A method for the quantification of retinyl palmitate using HPLC-UV was developed.•The HPLC method had a low LOD (0.01 µg/mL) and LOQ (0.03 µg/mL).•Vitamin A was completely extracted from simple matrices using acetone/methanol.•Vitamin A was efficiently extracted from bread and cookies with chloroform/methanol.•The newly developed procedure and the standard procedure yielded equivalent results. Vitamin A is generally analysed using a time-consuming and possibly detrimental saponification step, followed by extraction and HPLC analysis. We here developed a new method to analyse retinyl palmitate (RP) (also known as vitamin A palmitate) without the need for saponification and validated it in model systems consisting of RP, soy oil and wheat bran, and in RP-fortified cereal products. Two direct solvent extraction protocols using acetone/methanol (7/3, v/v) or chloroform/methanol (1/1, v/v) were tested. After extraction, RP was quantified by reversed-phase HPLC with UV detection. The HPLC method had low limits of detection (0.01 µg/mL) and quantification (0.03 µg/mL). Both extraction protocols showed a good recovery (88–105 %) and intra-and inter-day precision (