Marc Maudoux

Patulin in domestic and imported apple-based drinks in Belgium: occurrence and exposure assessment.

Apple-based beverages are regularly consumed by adults and children in Belgium. They are locally produced or imported from other countries. The apples used as starting material for these productions are frequently contaminated by mycotoxin-producing moulds and damaged during transport and handling. The current study was undertaken to investigate whether patulin (PAT) is present in the industrial or handicraft-made apple juices and ciders consumed by the Belgian population and to assess the populations exposure to this mycotoxin through apple-based drinks. Belgian (n = 29) and imported (14) apple juices as well as ciders (7) were assayed for PAT by high-performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet light detection. PAT was detected respectively in 79, 86 and 43% of these tested samples. However, no contaminated sample exceeded the safe level of 50 μg PAT l-1. Levels of PAT contamination were comparable in Belgian and imported juice samples. The overall mean PAT concentrations were 9.0 and 3.4 μg l-1 for contaminated apple juices and ciders, respectively. This study also indicates that there was no statistically significant difference in the mean PAT contamination between clear (7.8 μg lμ1) and cloudy (10.7 μg lμ1) apple juices, as well as between handicraft-made apple juices (14.6 μg lμ1) and industrial ones (7.0 μg lμ1). On the basis of the mean results, a consumer exposure assessment indicates that a daily intake of 0.2 litres apple juice contributes to 45% of the provisional maximum tolerable daily intake for a child of 10 kg body weight.

Ochratoxin A in domestic and imported beers in Belgium: occurrence and exposure assessment.

Determination of ochratoxin A (OTA) concentration was performed in commercial beer in Belgium using immunoaffinity column (OchraTest™) clean-up and liquid chromatography. The procedure was validated and fulfilled the European Committee for Standardizations criteria. It offered a detection limit of 3 ng l-1 and a quantification limit of 10 ng l-1. Recovery experiments carried out with the spiked samples in the range 50–200 ng OTAl-1 showed an overall average recovery rate of 97% (RSD = 2.8%). The validated method was applied to the analysis of 62 Belgian beers and 20 commercial beers imported from Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, The Netherlands and Scotland. None of these beers exceeded the previously suggested EU limit of 200 ng l-1. However, OTA was detected in 60 Belgian beers and in all imported beers. The average levels of contamination were 33 ng l-1 (RSD = 112%) and 32 ng l-1 (RSD = 81%), respectively. The highest level found was 185 ng l-1. On the basis of the established tolerable daily intake (TDI) of 5 ng kg-1 body weight, accepted by the scientific committee on food of the EU, this study indicates that beer consumption in Belgium is not likely to contribute to more than a few per cent of the TDI based on the average consumption. This study also shows variability of the OTA contamination in beer with time. Thus, there is a potential risk of having highly contaminated batches from time to time. We therefore recommend to control further the OTA contamination in brewery products and to take precautionary measures during harvest, transport and storage of the raw materials to maintain the OTA intake at the lowest achievable level.

Quantitative analysis of alcohol, real extract, original gravity, nitrogen and polyphenols in beers using NIR spectroscopy

This study was to develop a rapid and accurate NIR analysis method for determinations of alcohol, real extract, original gravity, total nitrogen and total polyphenols. Commercial European beers (110 samples) were used to create calibration models between EBC (European Brewing Committee) and NIR spectral data. The optimal correlation coefficients (r) were 0.94 to 0.98 and the corresponding CV% (coefficients of validation variation) were 4.29, 6.53, 4.50, 6.06 and 4.74 for NIR predictions of alcohol, real extract, original gravity, nitrogen and polyphenols, respectively. The stepwise MLR calibration proved to be a good choice for measurements of alcohol and original gravity, while PLS regression models seem to be better for the predictions of the real extract, nitrogen and polyphenols. Comparisons of results from MLR and PLS, demonstrate that MLR methods (log 1/R) are better than those of PLS (log 1/R) in calibration and prediction sets. The reflection mode is better than those of transmission in all above cases.