Food Contaminants

Improving scientific knowledge on food contaminants to ensure safer products

Task Force Information

Objectives and list of Task Force
members

Contact Information

Contact details in case you have specific questions

Activity Overview

Overview of ongoing and upcoming activities

Expert Groups

Objectives, output and list of experts involved in each activity

Publications

List of publications of this
Task Force

Multimedia

Links to Task Force related documents, recordings and much more...

Completed Expert Groups

Details including experts involved of each activity

Task Force Information

Objectives

As food contaminants poses a threat to consumers’ health, it is crucial to improve our knowledge about them. As such, the Food Contaminants Task Force.

  • Advance scientific knowledge on food contaminants – process-related contaminants, natural toxins, and other environmental contaminants – particularly focusing on assessing impacts on human health
  • Address research gaps in toxicity, exposure, and analytical aspects of food contaminants
  • Review & evaluate mitigation measures and support for risk management strategies for food contaminants.

Task Force Members

* Scientific Advisors

Contact Information

For more detailed information, please contact Konrad Korzeniowski at kkorzeniowski@ilsieurope.be or Belinda Antonio at bantonio@ilsieurope.be

Activity Overview

Update on Risk-Benefit Assessment of foods: approaches to facilitate application - Ongoing -

Objectives

An expert group on risk-benefits assessment of foods explores the reasons for limited application and seek practical solutions to increase the utility of this methodology in foods.

Prioritisation of natural toxins for risk management action based on both public health risk and mitigation efficacy - Upcoming -

Objectives

An expert group on prioritisation of natural toxins for risk management action will kick-off end of 2022. This activity will establish a framework for the prioritisation of natural toxins in foods following a risk-based approach.

New activity on the definition of Food Contaminants - Upcoming -

Objectives

This activity aims to gather and combine definitions of food contaminants and organise a workshop with a publication as an output.

- Upcoming -

Early career scientists’ event will take place in the Q1 of 2023

Expert Groups

Update on Risk-Benefit Assessment of foods: approaches to facilitate application

Background and Objectives

All foods contain chemical and biological impurities some of which may be viewed as contaminants of toxicological or microbiological relevance, depending on the definition used. Classical risk assessment does not reconcile the benefit to health of the food against the potential effects of the contaminants or the impact of mitigation measures that may be applied to reduce contaminants. A contaminant-centric view of a food can result in an incomplete understanding of the net health benefits of food by groups such as policy makers.
As such, methods for the comparison between benefits and risks have been developed, including the publication of guidance materials. Despite the availability of guidance, there have been a limited number of examples of risk-benefit analysis being used as an input for the risk management of foods by food safety agencies.

Output

This activity will review the evolution and application of risk-benefit assessment since its infancy, and thereby understand:
  • Why risk-benefit assessment has not been more widely applied by food safety agencies in Europe?
  • What are the available applications of RBA since the publication of guidance and what are the lessons learned?
  • Whether existing guidance can be amended to improve applicability?
  • The above learnings will be tested via a limited number of worked examples and summarized in a peer-reviewed publication.

Expert Group Members

Publications

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All Publications

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Multimedia

Introductory video

 

 

Webinars

‘Mycotoxin Prevention and Control: Food Processing Mitigation Strategies’
Watch the Webinar

Podcasts
Click here to watch the Podcast on 'Dietary Exposure Mitigation to Chemical Contaminants'

Completed Expert Groups

Overview of completed activities since 2021

* To see the full output of the task force, please visit the Task Force publication list