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G. Chandrashekhar

MUMBAI, Feb. 5

THE United Kingdom is likely to tighten food laws including inspection of imported foodstuffs and ingredient. A tough position is likely to be taken against retailers selling foods that do not comply with official food standards. This follows findings of a survey of nuts, nut products and dried tree fruits for mycotoxins undertaken by the Food Standards Agency (FSA).

A total of 227 samples of nuts, nut products and dried tree fruits were obtained from two surveys (main and additional) of retail outlets and analysed for the mycotoxins-aflatoxin 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.

FSA has 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.

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 survey report said. FSA will discuss the matter with enforcement agencies - local authorities and port health officials, to set in place sampling strategies to follow up the work, emphasising that imports of non-compliant consignments should be rejected, diverted for use other than human consumption or seized with a view to magistrates' ordering destruction and that manufacturers of non-compliant samples should be prosecuted.

The aflatoxins, ochratoxin A, and sterigmatocystin are naturally occurring toxins_ mycotoxins _ produced by moulds growing on food crops during production and subsequent storage. Mycotoxins are found in a wide range of foods, particularly in countries with climates of high temperature and humidity or where poor harvesting and storage conditions encourage mould growth and mycotoxin development.

Aflatoxins occur mainly in commodities such as groundnuts, and other edible nuts and their products, dried fig products, spices and maize. While the consumption of a very small amount mycotoxin is unlikely to cause any ill effects, continued ingestion can prove to be potentially carcinogenic.

For India, the UK food standards are important, particularly for groundnut export business. The UK is a major importer of selected peanuts which are used for roasting and salting, peanut butter and in preparation of snack foods.

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