Polands RASFF Rejections for Sunflower Oil – Misinterpretation of Analytical Results?
In 2023, Poland declared 14 border rejections of crude sunflower oil consignments to the RASFF due to the presence of chlorpyrifos residues.
Analyzing the notifications it can be seen that the majority are a consequence of a misinterpretation of the analytical results..
I'm not sure of the issue but misinterpretation of test results can be an issue. There was a case a few years back of mustard contamination of wheat. We were asked by a customer if we needed to alibi label. On reading up on it, I genuinely felt that the results were likely to have been misinterpreted from a false positive resulting from rape seed oil protein not mustard and also, if present, the levels were likely to be tiny.
We did some due diligence testing, never found anything and so didn't alibi label figuring that genuinely we had higher risks around us.
It would be interesting to hear more info about the case you talk about if you have it?
Since 0.005 > 0.003 is considered an unfavorable result and the game is rejected.
This is a mistake.
The MRL for chlorpyrifos in sunflower seeds is 0.01 mg/kg.
When applying the MRL to oil, a process factor must be applied that has not yet been established in Regulation EC 396/2005. The FP for crude sunflower oil set by FEDIOL of 2.5 should be applied (the pipe has 40% oil or what is the same, 2.5 kg of pipes are used to obtain one liter of crude oil). The MRL for the oil would be: MRL x FP = 0.025 mg/kg.
the result (0.005) is much lower than the MRL of 0.025.
Then the analytical result is favorable and would not justify a rejection." style="font-size: 28px; line-height: 36px; background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); border: none; padding: 2px 0.14em 2px 0px; position: relative; margin-top: -2px; margin-bottom: -2px; resize: none; font-family: inherit; overflow: hidden; width: 270px; text-wrap-mode: wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word; color: rgb(31, 31, 31);">If you go to the RASFF window and look for notification 2023.4277 you can see that the rejection is based on an analytical result of 0.009 +/- 0.005 milligrams per kilogram. 0.003 mg/kg is used as the legal limit.
Since 0.005 > 0.003 is considered an unfavorable result and the game is rejected.
This is a mistake.
The MRL for chlorpyrifos in sunflower seeds is 0.01 mg/kg.
When applying the MRL to oil, a process factor must be applied that has not yet been established in Regulation EC 396/2005. The FP for crude sunflower oil set by FEDIOL of 2.5 should be applied (the pipe has 40% oil or what is the same, 2.5 kg of pipes are used to obtain one liter of crude oil). The MRL for the oil would be: MRL x FP = 0.025 mg/kg.
the result (0.005) is much lower than the MRL of 0.025.
Then the analytical result is favorable and would not justify a rejection.
If you go to the RASFF window and look for notification 2023.4277 you can see that the rejection is based on an analytical result of 0.009 +/- 0.005 milligrams per kilogram. 0.003 mg/kg is used as the legal limit. Since 0.005 > 0.003 is considered an unfavorable result and the game is rejected. This is a mistake.
If you go to the RASFF window and look for notification 2023.4277 you can see that the rejection is based on an analytical result of 0.009 +/- 0.005 milligrams per kilogram. 0.003 mg/kg is used as the legal limit. Since 0.005 > 0.003 is considered an unfavorable result and the game is rejected. This is a mistake.