ISSUE FOCUS 42 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE May 2023 Grain processors regularly face the presence of toxic ergot alkaloids (EAs). Europe has set new limits of detection since early 2022, but analysis is expensive and time-consuming. The industry therefore needs a faster, cheaper method to allow contaminated batches to be identified earlier. Thanks to a successful Top Consortium for Knowledge and Innovation (TKI, The Netherlands) project, led by WFSR, this method is now available. LEGISLATION Since 1st January 2022, new standards have been established in European Regulation EU 2021/1399 for both the presence of sclerotia in cereals and toxins in the cereals or products derived from them. Table 1 gives an overview of the limits, detailing the 12 EAs which are regulated. EU 2021/1399 distinguishes between the occurrence of sclerotia and EAs, but also between the different grains and even the different products derived from cereals. Furthermore, the European Commission (EC) expects that the EA content in flour will continue to fall due to process improvement. The EC is already anticipating on this by introducing lower standards in 2024, but it is not inconceivable that With contribution from a consortium of companies led by WFSR (Wageningen Food Safety Research, The Netherlands), Randox Food Diagnostics has developed an ELISA that is sensitive enough to measure Ergot Alkaloids around the limit value. The ELISA has been validated for rye, barley, wheat, oats and spelt, and no false negatives were found for the field samples tested. NEW RAPID TEST DEVELOPED FOR TOXIC ERGOT ALKALOIDS IN CEREAL GRAINS Authors*: Patrick Mulder, Pieter Vos, Bart van der Nagel, Jonathan Porter, Sanneli Kingma, Jaap Hengstmengel, Andries Koops ADVERTORIAL
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