A Brief Analysis of EU RASFF Notifications in May 2022

Background:

The Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) is a tool enabling a quick and effective exchange of information between the EU Member States and the EU Commission when risks to human and animal health are detected in the food and feed chain, and about the measures taken in response. RASFF notifications are so-called "original notifications", representing a new case reported on a health risk detected in one or more consignments of a food or feed.

In May 2022, a total of 378 original notifications were sent through the RASFF Portal, among which 332 were food, 26 were feed and 20 were food contact material (FCM).

Notifications for food

Among all the 332 food products, fruit & vegetable accounted for the most cases (18%), followed by nuts, nut products & seeds (14%), cereals & bakery products (10%), herbs & spices (10%) and dietetic foods, food supplements & fortified foods (9%).

Analysis of the top 5 categories with the most notifications

Among all the 61 fruit & vegetable products, the non-compliance reason of 42, accounting for 69%, were related to pesticides, including pesticide residue, unauthorized pesticide, exceeding the maximum residue level for pesticide, etc. Among the 61 products, 32 of them were from Turkey.
As for the non-compliance reasons for nuts, nut products & seeds, 34 of them (accounting for 74%) were related to aflatoxins.
Pollutants like Aflatoxin B1, mould, etc. were the major reason that resulted in the notifications of cereal & bakery products, accounting for 64% of the non-compliant items.
The presence of Salmonella spp. (30%) and pesticides (24%) were the major reasons for the notification of herbs and spices.
Around two-thirds of “dietetic foods, food supplements and fortified foods” are notified due to the finding of unauthorized substances, such as the unauthorized novel food ingredient cannabidiol (CBD) found in CBD oil from the Czech Republic.

Notifications for feed

Among all the 26 feed products, 19 of them were feed materials, 2 were pet food, 2 were compound feed, 2 were feed additives, and 1 was fats and oils. Salmonella was the major non-compliant item, which accounted for 58%. Other non-compliant reasons include the presence of unauthorized substances like CBD, exceedance of the action threshold for dioxin, exceedance content of lead, etc.

Notifications for FCM

Among the 20 notified food contact materials, 15 of them are from China. Speaking of the non-compliant reasons, over half of them are related to the migration of certain substances such as di(2-ethylhexyl)adipate (DEHA), bisphenol F diglycydyl ether (BFDGE), etc. 7 of them are notified due to unauthorized substances like unauthorized bamboo in coffee mug.