A new method for testing pesticide residues in food could potentially simplify and reduce the cost of assessing whether food products entering the market comply with the limits for pesticide residues allowed in those products.
Farmers use pesticides to protect crops from pests, fungi, and weeds, and pesticide residues can end up in the food we consume. The EU has established maximum residue limits for pesticide content in food, meaning that control laboratories regularly test food products to ensure that these limits are not exceeded.
Currently, laboratories must purchase and store numerous analytical standards – that is, highly purified compounds at known concentrations, which are used to confirm and quantify compounds in the food being tested. This allows laboratories to identify and quantify pesticide residues in food, though the procedure is both expensive and labor-intensive.
"We developed a method that makes it feasible to quantify several pesticide residues found in food using few analytical standards. With the new method, we can reduce the number of standards from more than 200 to around twenty. This means lower costs and reduced complexity in the analyses, while maintaining accurate results," says Elena Hakme, Associate Professor at DTU National Food Institute.
The new method can save laboratories time and money, making it easier for them to meet EU requirements.
"DTU National Food Institute sees great potential in this method. By simplifying and reducing the cost of pesticide residue testing, we could ultimately enhance consumer protection, says Elena Hakme, who hopes the method will eventually become standard practice both within and outside Europe.
The next step in the research will be to test the method in various laboratories and with different types of instruments to ensure it can be widely adopted.
The research was conducted in collaboration with Phytopharmacy Laboratory, Ministry of Agriculture of Lebanon, Beirut, Lebanon and Copenhagen University, Department of Computer Science, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Read more
Read about the testing method and its perspectives in a scientific article published in the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis.
Find more information about the Research Group for Analytical Food at DTU National Food Institute’s website.
