Food testing news and events in brief
New EFSA statement on tropane alkaloids
In 2013, the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) issued a Scientific Opinion on tropane alkaloids (TA) in food and feed. TAs are secondary metabolites and include more than 200 different compounds present in various plants. Plant families of concern include Brassicaceae (the mustard family), Solanaceae (the nightshade or potato family) and Erythroxylaceae (the coca family).
Most of the research has centred around the toxic alkaloids hyoscyamine and scopolamine e.g. from Datura plants as they are potential contaminants of various food and feedingstuffs when growing in the vicinity of crops. Cereals and cerealbased infant food, buckwheat, oilseeds, such as linseed, sunflower or soybean products and herbal teas are examples of products where this may be of concern.
According to EFSA, the dietary exposure of toddlers could exceed the Group Acute Reference Dose (ARfD) of 0.016 μg/kg body weight. Further investigations are required for a comprehensive health risk assessment. Eurofins is offering the determination of the most important tropane alkaloids atropine (sum of (+)- and (-)-hyoscyamine) and scopolamine in relevant food and feed matrices using Liquid Chromatography (LC-MS/MS).
Contact: NadjaFluechter@eurofins.de
50 years of pesticide residue analysis
The publication of the book "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson in 1962 is considered by non-governmental organisations as the cradle of pesticide policy and the critical review of the use of plant protection products. Dr. Carson was the first to describe the negative effects of "modern agriculture" as it was in the sixties.
Two years later, Dr. Wolfgang Specht decided to purchase two gas chromatographs and started to develop one of the first multi pesticide residue methods.
Over the past 50 years the perceived importance of pesticide residue analysis has continued to grow as exemplified in the increasing number of samples processed by the Eurofins Group amounting to more than 500,000 samples worldwide every year.
Contact: JochenRiehle@eurofins.de
Commercial Planting of GMOs
The "International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications" (ISAAA) has released its annual report on the commercial (planting/ cultivation) of genetically modified plants. As in past years, the commercial (planting/ cultivation) of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) continued to increase into 2013 and accounted for over 175 million hectares globally. We would be happy to send you a free overview of the global GMO (planting/ cultivation) figures upon request.
Contact: gmo@eurofins.de
