Articles - Mycotoxins

Increasing Russian grain production could push the country to look more closely at mycotoxins to take advantage of new export opportunities.     Russia is set to ramp up agricultural production and exports in the next few years, but mycotoxin contamination remains an open challenge hindering the export of more products to foreign mar [...]

This article provides the non-specialized reader with an overview of the major techniques employed by food testing laboratories for the analysis of mycotoxins, including a brief description of the complex analytical tools required.         Introduction   Most consumers think the word natural is synonymous with safe, healthy [...]

How tech developments have made possible the detection of large numbers of targets in a single run. What we are still missing for quantitative detection by multi-class methods. The introduction of ion mobility in high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS). The need for shared databases.   The (r)evolution of analytical methods over the last two [...]

In the last 20 years, aflatoxin M1 has been found in milk in southern Europe at unprecedented levels on several occasions. Is it the result of climate change? What do experts think about the risk for consumers, both now and in the future? Is the best approach to move from an M1 limit in milk to a “total aflatoxin metabolites” limit in m [...]

Validation of a new and novel Patulin ELISA kit   Background   The presence of toxic chemical contaminants in food, particularly those intended for children's consumption, is a matter of great concern to consumers and health authorities. Mycotoxins in food, animal feed, and beverages have been recognized as a potential threat to human and [...]

Dietary supplements: how natural contaminants may turn botanical remedies into a Pandora’s box.       Food supplements: a growing market trend  According to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA 2009), food supplements are “concentrated sources of nutrients or other substances with a nutritional or physiological e [...]

Are regulatory limits a good compromise between public health and economic interests?     The EU undoubtedly has the strictest mycotoxin regulations in the world. The complex and supposedly well-structured system that enforces these regulations and guarantees the highest level of safety for EU citizens actually has some weak points and ev [...]

An overview of the last ten years of notifications related to food contaminated with mycotoxins.     In order to protect food consumers and livestock, mycotoxin levels in food and feed need to be controlled because they have toxic properties that can sometimes cause chronic negative health effects (Bhat et al. 2010; Wild and Gong 2010). W [...]

Whether it is an administrative case or a criminal case, the consequences for noncompliance in the preparation and handling of foodstuffs and feedstuffs appear to vary widely. We interviewed four legal experts in the field.The problem of safety of use in the cereal chain is primarily linked to mycotoxin contamination. ochratoxin A (OTA), zearalenon [...]

Affidia interviewed two of the principle players in testing inspection and certification of grain shipments to learn how real investigations are conducted and to understand the unmet challenges in this field.Globalization has increased the international circulation of commodities. For some of these commodities, globalization has meant the establish [...]

One of the most expensive nuts is sometimes contaminated by aflatoxin at levels above EU regulatory limits. Here we try to understand to what extent the dramatic decrease in Iranian pistachio border rejections has been due to the change in regulatory limits.     The origin of the word pistachio comes from the Persian word pesteh. Iran has [...]

Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain exporters, faces mycotoxin-related challenges in an expanding export market. This article explains how grain stakeholders in Ukraine conduct mycotoxin risk management, which analysis methods they use, and why they choose them.     The impact of mycotoxins on human health and on the economy M [...]

A changing environment and ambitious plans to ramp up wheat exports pushes Russian veterinary watchdog Rosselhoznadzor to enhance control over the presence of mycotoxins in grain.Rosselkhoznadzor is currently designing a new traceability system to ensure exported grain is free of mycotoxins. Russia needs to tighten control over the quality of expor [...]

A survey to investigate topics including the technologies used, the number of analyses conducted, and the test kits’ certifications.Rapid testing for grainAflatoxin and deoxynivalenol (DON) contamination of grain depends on several factors, primary among them weather conditions in the pre-harvest period. In Europe, aflatoxin in corn is mostly a p [...]

Abstract – Ochratoxin A has been regulated in Europe since 2006, with the first official risk assessment dating back to 1994. There have been many efforts over the years in the agro-food system to control, monitor, and mitigate its occurrence in food commodities. However, the recent scientific evaluation of EFSA shed light on several still-op [...]