Dietary exposure and risk characterisation of multiple chemical contaminants in rye-wheat bread marketed in Poland

Abstract

The aim of this work was to collect occurrence data on chemical contaminants in rye-wheat bread marketed in Poland and subsequently estimate the risk due to dietary exposure to those chemicals for different population age groups in Poland. The choice of the food matrix has been driven by the fact that bread is an important component of the diet of Poles. Therefore, the collection of data on this staple food might be of interest form a public health perspective. The analytes under investigation belong to different categories: process contaminants (acrylamide), mycotoxins (deoxynivalenol, deoxynivalenol-3-glucoside, nivalenol and nivalenol-3-glucoside) and environmental contaminants (aluminium, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead and nickel). The activities presented in this technical report have been carried out in the frame of the European Food Risk Assessment (EU-FORA) Fellowship Programme. The objective of the fellowship is to provide middle-early career scientists with new skills and knowledge on food risk assessment. This goal is pursued through a hands-on experience in a competent organisation active in fields within EFSA's mission. In this case, the work programme has been implemented at the Department of Food Safety and Chemical Analysis of the State Research Institute of Agriculture and Food Biotechnology Prof. Wacław Dąbrowski (IBPRS-PIB), located in Warsaw, Poland. A significant part of the research work consisted in the implementation of different analytical techniques to collect occurrence data that were subsequently combined with consumption data retrieved from the EFSA Comprehensive European Food Consumption Database to assess the exposure and characterise the risk. Finally, an attempt has been made to identify uncertainties and evaluate their impact on results.

Keywords: EU‐FORA; bread and rolls; chemical contaminants; food risk assessment.