Why Attend?

As we learned in our past webinars about mycotoxins, we need to monitor the risk of contamination to save resources and prevent wrong decisions about raw materials.  

The origin of the commodities, the weather conditions, the level of preventive measures implemented by farmers, as well as the frequency of incidents and recalls must be considered. Inspection and certification companies can prevent the import of non-compliant raw materials, but sometimes the goods maintain a level of risk, particularly now with new lower EU Maximum Limits in place or incoming.  

Analytical methods, both rapid onsite and laboratory ones, are sensitive and precise, and interlaboratory variation is acceptable, but sampling and sometimes sample preparation requires a lot of resources and knowledge. Because of this, commercial litigations and even the seizure of goods can occur. Scientists worked and are still working to develop post-harvesting mitigation methods, nevertheless, mycotoxins are still one major cause of recalls and incidents.  

In this webinar, you will be informed about the latest methods to prevent contaminated raw materials from entering your production process, the mitigation procedures available, the most effective techniques for collecting and preparing samples, and the recent changes in regulatory limits.  

Agenda

15:00 - 15:05 Introduction by Affidia Journal  

15:05 - 16:25 Presentations  

15:05 - 15:25 Mycotoxins formation and mitigation methods in different food chains by Prof. Armando Venancio, PhD  (Universidade do Minho)

Mycotoxins are metabolites produced by a few filamentous fungi, that are ubiquitous in Nature, being found in many food crops. Mycotoxins accumulate in commodities either in the field (before harvest) or during storage (after harvest); just in few cases, mycotoxins may develop during food processing. In turn, food processing can alter the mycotoxin content, either by removing it or by transforming it. For selected pairs of mycotoxin-food commodity – used as case studies – chemical, physical and biological mitigation methods will be presented, with its pros and cons. Prevention will always be seen as the best way to control mycotoxins, but, as their accumulation in food and feed is often unavoidable, their removal or degradation will also be addressed.  In this presentation, a special emphasis will be devoted to methods or stages of processing where mycotoxin control can be done, using case studies on the occurrence of the best-known mycotoxins in cereals, fruits, nuts and derived products, as well as a short trip to some emerging mycotoxins.  

15:25 - 15:45 Are sample size and sample preparation for mycotoxin quantitation in grain products getting trivialized? by Prof. Limbikani Matumba, PhD (Lilongwe Univ. of Agric. & Natural Resources)

Sampling and sample preparation (grinding and subsampling) are largest sources of variability that negate precision and accuracy of mycotoxin quantitation, particularly in grains. In general, halving sample or sub-sample (e.g., ground test portion) size doubles variance. Therefore, this paper reports on trends in sample and test portion masses used for the quantification of mycotoxin in maize between 1991 and 2020 by reviewing articles on mycotoxin quantitation in maize (grain and flour) published during this period. About 50% of the articles did not explicitly state the sample mass that was ground. Sample and test portion masses show a significant (p < 0.05) decline over the study period. In addition, over two-thirds of the articles did not specify the type of grinder and sieve sizes used in their analysis. Therefore, our findings suggest that standardized sampling plans with emphasis on laboratory sample size and sample preparation methods for maize are increasingly being overlooked during mycotoxin quantitation and increasing the uncertainty associated with estimating the true mycotoxin concentration in grain lots.

15:45 - 16:05 FBOs facing the challenge of new mycotoxins regulation by Maurizio Paleologo (Affidia Journal)

Mycotoxins are one of the main causes of border rejections and recall in Europe. Apart from dried fruits, spices, and nuts, imported from other parts of the world, even many products of European agriculture are affected by these hazardous contaminants. This is, for instance, the case of wine, beer, milk, cheese, and even ham. In this presentation we will show a map of the risk and we will listen by the quality managers of a few industries how they are working in order to guarantee the lowest possible level of mycotoxins in their products (Raquel Medeiros, Head of Food Safety - Chemical Contaminants and Packaging at Nestlè, Mònica Molero Monfort, Quality Assurance Manager at Importaco, and, as voice of a whole sector, Silvia Tombesi, Scientific and Regulatory Affairs Manager at the European Snacks Association).

16:05 - 16:25 Regulatory updates by Frans Verstraete (EU Commission)

16:25 Tech solutions on the market by the Sponsors  

16:40 Q&A session  

17:00 Conclusions