A highly sensitive spectrophotometric determination of benzoylperoxide (BPO) based on the color developing reaction between N,N,N',N'-tetramethyl-p-phenylenediamine (TMPD) and BPO in the presence of cerium (IV) in weakly acidic media is proposed. The calibration graph is linear In the range 0-6000 ng BPO per 10 ml with an apparent molar absorptivity of 4.73 x 10(5) l mol(-1) cm(-1) at 612 nm. The proposed method is about 50-fold more sensitive than N-ethyl-2-naphthylamine (NENA), and application to assays of flour is described.