AINIA / Laboratories / Physico-chemical / Emerging contaminants

Emerging contaminants

Identification and characterisation of emerging contaminants in food and food contact materials. Method development and optimisation.

Generation of analytical evidence for the detection, technical assessment and interpretation of substances of emerging concern in the food chain.

Detection and analysis of emerging contaminants

The evolution of production processes, the use of new materials, the diversification of raw materials and increasing regulatory and societal pressure are leading to the emergence of substances not covered by conventional analytical control plans.

These emerging contaminants may originate from various sources (environmental, technological, food contact materials, by-products or process contaminants) and, in many cases:

They have no established legal limits, or these are under review.
They lack widely implemented standardised methods.
There is limited information on their actual occurrence and typical levels in food.

Approaches based exclusively on closed lists of regulated contaminants are insufficient to identify and characterise these types of substances, creating technical uncertainty in companies’ decision-making.

As examples of situations in which analytical services were not available at national or European level, we highlight the following cases in which AINIA was directly involved:

Ethylene oxide crisis in 2020
Need for phenylbutazone analysis during the horse meat crisis in 20013
Determination of MOH in sunflower oil from Ukraine in 2008

In the use cases section, we briefly describe how these situations were resolved.

Our solution

Identification, detection and analytical characterisation

AINIA offers a specialised technical service for emerging contaminants, aimed at providing objective, contextualised information to support technical risk management.

Rapid adaptation

AINIA's technical team's extensive experience in method development and optimisation enables it to adapt quickly to these situations, often urgent, and make the new service available within a few days.

Technical evidence for decision-making

The results obtained support internal processes for diagnosis, monitoring, prioritisation or informed decision-making.

Quality system

Where applicable, tests are carried out under the laboratory's quality system in accordance with ISO/IEC 17025, without this automatically implying accreditation for all parameters or analytical approaches.

Applications

Impact and benefits

Obtaining reliable and specific analytical data on emerging contaminants.
Improved capacity for diagnosis and technical prioritisation of non-routine risks.
Reduction of uncertainty associated with poorly characterised substances.
Strengthening the technical robustness of internal control and monitoring systems.
Documented support for evidence-based decision-making.

Use case

As examples of AINIA’s involvement in this type of situation, we highlight its role in three well-known food safety crises. In all three cases, analytical services for the substance of concern in the target matrix were either unavailable or very limited, at least at national level. The examples are:

Rapid analytical response to the ethylene oxide crisis

In 2020, the ethylene oxide crisis arose following the detection of this contaminant, a biocidal substance whose use is prohibited in the EU, in sesame seeds from India. At that time, analytical services for the analyte and target matrix in the EU were limited to a single laboratory, which had not developed the method for other matrices. At AINIA, the method was developed for a wide range of matrices within a few days, implementing a GC-MS/MS-based technique. Subsequently, as border controls increased, it became clear that the crisis affected not only that product but also products from other origins, resulting in high demand for analytical services until the situation was brought under control.

Urgent development of methods to detect phenylbutazone

In 2013, the well-known horse meat crisis broke out, creating a need for methods to analyse phenylbutazone, a veterinary medicine. As in the previous case, the necessary analytical service, based on LC-MS/MS, was developed urgently within a few days.

Urgent development of methods to detect MOH in sunflower oil

As a third example, in 2008, a food safety crisis occurred involving sunflower oil contaminated with mineral oil hydrocarbons. In this case too, analytical services were unavailable, at least at national level. The AINIA team developed the method for analysing MOH in oil using GC in two days.

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Vicente Carbonell

Head of the Chemistry Laboratory

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