Meat from male pigs may develop an off-flavour, commonly known as boar taint. For that reason male piglets are surgically castrated at young age to avoid the potential off-flavour formation. Animal welfare concerns have triggered research into alternatives to surgical castration of male piglets...

The Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM) of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) was requested by the Directorate General Health and Consumers (DG SANCO) to organise a proficiency test on the determination of 3-MCPD esters in edible oils. The aim of this...

The Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM) of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) was requested by the Directorate General Health and Consumers (DG SANCO) to organise a proficiency test on the determination of mineral oil in sunflower oil. The aim of this...

This report presents the results of the 3rd inter-laboratory comparison (ILC) of the Community Reference Laboratory for Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) on the determination of the 15+1 EU priority PAHs in sausage meat and acetonitrile, which was conducted along the lines of the IUPAC...

The Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM) of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) was requested by the Directorate General for Health and Consumers (DG SANCO) to organise a proficiency test on the determination of furan in baby food in 2008. The aim of the...

This report presents the results of the 2nd inter-laboratory comparison (ILC) of the Community Reference Laboratory for Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) on the determination of the 15+1 EU priority PAHs in edible oil and acetonitrile, which was conducted along the lines of the IUPAC-AOAC...

The Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM) of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) was requested by the Directorate General Health and Consumer Protection (DG SANCO) to organise a proficiency test on the determination of acrylamide potato products in 2007. The...

Throughout history, there have been several deadly episodes of food poisoning by ergot alkaloids (EAs) (known as St. Anthony's fire or ergotism). EAs are secondary metabolites produced by fungi of the Claviceps genus (chiefly Claviceps purpurea), which are common pathogens of cereals and pasture...

The number of known mycotoxins, their precursors and metabolites has been steadily increasing over the past years. The European Commission puts special emphasis on the need to monitor the co-occurrence of mycotoxins of various families at levels that allow for a sound risk assessment, taking...

Tropane alkaloids (TAs) are plant toxins that occur mainly in Datura, Atropa and Hyoscyamus sp, belonging to the Solanaceae family, besides a variety of other families such as Erythroxylaceae, Brassicaceae, Proteaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Rhizophoraceae, Convolvulaceae and Cruciferae. The TAs occur...