Contaminants

FEDIOL Members’ first priority is the safety and quality of their products. To this end codes of best practices and food and feed safety standards have been developed at FEDIOL level to prevent or limit the occurence of contaminants in oils and fats, meals and by-products.   These industry standards are based on extensive risk assessments performed along the different food and feed supply chains. In addition, FEDIOL works at ensuring that the EU legislation in the field of contaminants enables a smooth flow of raw materials and transformed products on the EU market.

Among the contaminants rigorously monitored by FEDIOL members, a particular attention is given today to:

3 MCPD esters   
While most of the attention on 3-MCPD esters (and glycidol esters) is currently focused on refined oils and fats, in the light of the lack of scientific evidence, FEDIOL strives to have a coordinated approach with other food sectors and monitors the scientific information available on analytical methodologies, toxicity and bioavailability, formation pathways and potential mitigation in foods.
The emerging risk associated with the presence of 3-MCPD esters is being addressed globally by the industry, authorities and academia with limited breakthroughs to date.

FEDIOL experts have developed recommendations on the criteria considered critical to obtain workable and reliable analytical methods for the determination of 3-MCPD esters (and glycidol esters)

Mineral Oil
Following the mineral oil incident with imported sunflower oil in 2008, FEDIOL strives to prevent any cases of vegetable oil contamination/adulteration with mineral oil. In that regard two codes of practice were developed to analyse all incoming oils and fats from third countries.

EU Legislation