Survey of Nuts, Nut Products and Dried Tree Fruits For Mycotoxins (Number 21/02)

• Mycotoxins are produced by certain moulds growing on food crops. Many are genotoxic carcinogens i.e. they can cause cancer by damaging genetic material. Expert committees have recommended that the exposure to genotoxic mycotoxins should be reduced to levels as low as technologically achievable.
• A total of 227 samples of nuts, nut products and dried tree fruit were obtained from two surveys of retail outlets and analysed for the mycotoxins aflatoxins B₁, B₂, G₁ and G₂ and for ochratoxin A. Samples of peanuts were also analysed for sterigmatocystin.
• Levels of total aflatoxins above the regulatory limits were found in 10 samples (9 per cent) of the nut and nut products in the main survey and 4 samples (7 per cent) of the nut and nut products in the additional survey. This compares with 6 per cent of nut and nut product samples found to contain levels of total aflatoxins above the regulatory limit in a retail survey carried out in 1996.
• Aflatoxin B₁ above the regulatory limits was found in 14 samples (13 per cent) of the nut and nut products in the main survey and 5 samples (9 per cent) of the nut and nut products in the additional survey.
• Ochratoxin A was found in one dried tree fruit and one nut sample in the main survey to be above the limit in the proposed European Regulation for dried vine fruit.
• In the vast majority of samples the levels of mycotoxins found were low and there is therefore no need for anyone to avoid eating these products. The consumption of a very small amount of a mycotoxin on a single occasion is unlikely to cause any ill effects.
• The Food Standards Agency provides advice to and is in constant dialogue with industry and enforcement authorities to ensure mycotoxin contamination is reduced to a minimum. It has prepared Guidance Notes intended to help food authorities, industry and any other interested parties with the interpretation of the UK Regulations on aflatoxins. The Agency will continue to monitor for mycotoxins in these and other foodstuffs.
• The Food Standards Agency has also met with manufacturers to discuss their quality control and quality assurance measures in order to further reduce the underlying incidence of unacceptable levels of mycotoxin contamination. All companies with results greater than the UK regulatory limits were contacted.
• For the additional survey those companies whose products contained levels of concern were requested to undertake a product recall. The local authorities for these companies were informed and they undertook to ensure that the product recalls were carried out as effectively as possible. EU Member States were informed via the EC’s Rapid Alert System for Food.
• The Agency is not content with the level of mycotoxin incidence in retail foods and will be calling a further meeting with industry, manufacturers and importers, to discuss improvements to their quality control procedures.
• The Agency will also discuss the matter with enforcement agencies - local authorities and port health officials, to set in place sampling strategies to follow up this work, emphasising that imports of non-compliant consignments should be rejected or seized with a view to magistrates ordering destruction.
• The Agency has also notified the European Commission that the current restrictions on Iranian Pistachios are clearly not working and has asked it to consider re-imposing the temporary ban on imports.