Mycotoxins are on the rise. These toxins can be found in everyday foods such as corn, wheat, soy, peas, and peanuts, and can cause acute and long-term health effects if ingested. Additionally, they are heat tolerant, meaning they can be present in foods that are processed and prepared under conventional temperatures (80°-121°C), affecting the finished product.

Mycotoxins impact a number of commodities including grains, produce, spices, alcohol, and coffee. They can even reach dairy products through secondary exposure from animal feed. Further, these toxins are resistant to decomposition and are not removed by traditional food safety measures such as cooking, washing, or sanitizing.

Not only do they impact humans, but they also put many pets at risk, as they affect core pet food ingredients. Testing pet food is especially important, because pets typically eat the same food every day, and their food is traditionally stored at room temperature and served at the floor level.

There are six major types of mycotoxins that are consistently detected in food and pose safety risks: aflatoxins, trichothecenes, zearalenone, fumonisins, ochratoxins, and patulin. The side effects vary from food poisoning to cancers and long-term health issues.

Why Are Mycotoxins on the Rise?

Rain creates a damp environment for mycotoxin growth. A recent study, published in late 2022 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters (doi: 10.1029/2022GL099955), concludes that climate change is causing more intense rainfall across the country. In tandem, an uptick in consumer demand has trickled down to manufacturers and farmers who, in adapting to deliver more sourcing materials, are extending the growing season. Farmers cannot wait for the dry conditions to balance the consumer demand, which has exacerbated the problem. This has created a perfect storm in which mycotoxins can thrive, resulting in more food safety concerns across the supply chain.

Dietary Habits Have a Direct Impact

Food is a circular economy: Consumer demand and dietary habits drive agriculture production, and so on. Dietary shifts toward alternative meats and vegan-based meals increase demand for raw materials such as soy and pea protein. A March 2022 report from Acosta, a research firm based in Jacksonville, Fla., concluded that 40% of consumers purchased plant-based meat and/or dairy products within the prior six months.

As a result, more farmers are expanding their crop offerings to support this trend. As consumer demand increases, processors need product more rapidly and, in some cases, farmers are harvesting prematurely, before their crops dry out. As this trend expands, producers will likely try to harvest in new areas that may be susceptible to mycotoxin production.

Food Testing Poised for Growth

Food testing is critical to verify that foods that are at a higher risk of containing mycotoxins are not reaching consumers. The goal is to get more testing upstream and catch mycotoxins early on. Domestic grain elevators present a strong testing location, as it consolidates supply across various suppliers. Inspectors at the beginning of the process they can scan shipping containers and conduct sampling for analysis at the source. The key is for food inspectors to be efficient, providing quick turnaround for customers. It’s equally important that testing is accessible across all geographies, especially as farming areas expand and new crops are established.

Preventing Mycotoxins

There are things we can do today and in the future to prevent the spread of mycotoxins and ensure food safety. In the short-term, strong testing practices and procedures must be put in place in food manufacturing plants to ensure that mycotoxins don’t reach store shelves. Regulations are already in place to ensure that this occurs at manufacturing facilities. Farther up the chain, preventive measures can help reduce incidence. Certification and employee training comprise the first step, informing suitable areas to grow crops, seasonality, and best practices such as separating lots, depending on the crop. Armed with this knowledge, we can reduce the risk of mycotoxin exposure early in the process, as opposed to discovering contaminated foods at the end of the production cycle.

As the current workforce ages, it’s important to upskill existing employees and keep them abreast of the latest food safety standards and best practices. Continue to train all employees involved in the process to avoid loss of this knowledge.

Ultimately, we can all be better stewards to our planet to slow climate change, avoid extreme weather, and create stability in the food ecosystem. Sustainability has become a larger focus for individuals and corporations as people seek to reduce their environmental footprint over time.

Food safety is closely coupled with consumer demand, dietary preferences, and environmental impact. Heightened demand creates a chain reaction from fork to farm and farm to fork. The presence of mycotoxins can be expensive for food producers and an ongoing threat to public health. Preventing a toxin from entering the food chain requires consistent and reliable analytical testing. Testing and certification remain integral to overall consumer safety and the future of food production to minimize the increased impact of mycotoxins in today’s changing landscape.

Sharp is VP Commercial Operations North America at Bureau Veritas. Reach him at waylon.sharp@bureauveritas.com

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The Great Resignation began sweeping through U.S. workplaces in 2021, resulting in nearly 48 million workers quitting their jobs, according to an April 2022 article in Mashable. Surveys of workers revealed that their top reasons for leaving were better pay, improved benefits, a new career direction, or a better working environment. Nearly 30% of the U.S. workforce was impacted, and the trend continues into 2022 with no clear indication of when, or how, it might ease, according to 2022 research from Statista.

In addition, challenges involving supply chains, transportation, and price pressures are forcing food manufacturers to develop creative solutions that not only serve their immediate production needs but enable greater resiliency in the face of future challenges.

Food safety testing has often followed a predictable pattern: Regulatory, industry, and trade drivers may influence where and how testing takes place, but food manufacturers have long been proactive in developing strategic and tactical approaches to ensuring that food and beverages are nutritious and safe to consume. A closer look at the role that food safety holds across the food manufacturing life cycle can help identify areas in which small changes can significantly improve operational efficiency and worker satisfaction while maintaining the highest product quality and safety standards.

When a worker shortage and employee retention are hurting production as they are today, food processors may want to take a harder look at food safety testing technologies and methods that are easier on the bottom line and safer and easier for new workers to use.

Identifying Mycotoxin ­Contamination

Table 1. Mycotoxins commonly detected in food and agricultural products.

Produced by naturally occurring soil-borne molds, mycotoxins are highly toxic metabolites found in most field, orchard, and vine-grown crops (see Table 1). Heat stable and persistent, mycotoxins remain on crops after they’ve been harvested, stored, and processed. In fact, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has estimated that 25% of the world’s food crops are contaminated with mycotoxins. Recent studies suggest that contamination is more complex and involves the presence of multiple mycotoxins in a single raw material.

Aflatoxins are among the most widely known and highly regulated mycotoxins. Produced by Aspergillus flavus and A. parasiticus molds, aflatoxin B1 is classified as a Group I carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Additional mycotoxins of food safety importance include fumonisin, ochratoxin A, patulin, ergot alkaloids, alternaria, deoxynivalenol (DON), nivalenol, zearalenone, and the combination of T-2 and HT-2. Each mycotoxin, or family of toxins, carries a unique toxicity profile, and regulatory guidelines are reflective of the intended use for the product. For example, the EU regulatory limit for aflatoxin M1 in milk products is 0.05 parts per billion (ppb); however, milk used to manufacture infant formula must follow a much stricter limit of 0.025 ppb.

The type or level of mycotoxin contamination varies with each crop season; therefore, having a process in place for screening can help identify high-risk raw materials, suppliers, and geographic regions. Severe weather patterns, warm and humid storage conditions, or even late crop planting may contribute to the severity of mycotoxin contamination.

Once a mold begins producing toxin, the contamination may remain highly ­localized to a very small area within a crop field or in a “hot spot” inside a storage bin. A single grain or nut kernel may constitute 100% of the aflatoxin contamination in each lot or shipment, for example, indicating the need for thorough inspection and careful sampling, especially at harvest.

Table 2. Lateral flow strip tests have come a long way and are highly sensitive, as these data from a 10-minute multi-toxin test procedure show.

In regions where environmental conditions (such as high heat or humidity) are favorable to mold growth, vigilance is key. Routine “upstream” monitoring is common, helping quality managers to identify and reject unsafe raw materials before they are allowed on site for storage or processing. Once mycotoxins enter the processing stream, the risks of cross contamination or further toxin production by the resident mold are always present. Food recalls or litigation due to mycotoxin contamination can be costly; the average recall costs the food industry between $5 and $10 million/incident, including insurance claims, legal representation, brand, and immediate and long-term business losses. The upstream detection of mycotoxins in raw materials also enables food manufacturers to find alternative markets for an ingredient that may not be suitable for their application but may be just fine for animal feed formulation.

Advancing Mycotoxin Testing Technologies

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) generated an upsurge in the use of rapid testing technologies. FSMA’s focus on ­prevention has enabled more food companies to better understand where mycotoxins come from and to manage the mycotoxin contamination of raw materials before they reach the processing facility. Early detection, combined with the unique challenges of our shifting workforce, creates the need for technologies that are simple enough to be used by staff with or without technical training or expertise. Adopting simpler test procedures that don’t require organic solvents and that are helped by automated data management are key factors that improve productivity, worker satisfaction, and safety, while giving the food manufacturer a leg up in meeting their own sustainability objectives.

Traditional mycotoxin testing methods are showing their age for a number of basic reasons. Some call for organic solvents, such as methanol, to extract toxins for analysis, which is what makes water-based test methods very attractive. Other methods, like ELISA, rely on employees handling the actual toxins and hand pipetting prior to sample analysis, risking exposure. Proper storage and disposal of unused testing supplies is also a consideration.

Fewer steps reduce error, bringing greater accuracy and better overall performance to screening tests.

As we know, not all mycotoxin testing takes place in the field. Sometimes it’s necessary to send samples for confirmatory testing to an analytical laboratory where trained lab technicians test for mycotoxins on analytical instrumentation including high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), ultraperformance liquid chromatography (UPLC) and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). These techniques can be automated to detect and quantify as many as one hundred mycotoxins in a single run. Effective onboarding and retention of new laboratory staff members may require investing in up-to-date instruments or methods, exploring service plans, or upgrading data handling software. Investments like these create an environment where employees are encouraged to learn, grow, work, and hopefully build a career.

Building for the future is always a good plan. There is an incredible opportunity amid the Great Resignation to pause and take a closer look at the technologies we use for food safety testing, and how they impact the employee experience. When our teams and the testing technologies they depend on work well together, food safety testing can deliver the most value.

Jackson is VICAM market development manager for Waters Corporation. Reach her at patricia_jackson@waters.com.

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Mycotoxin testing is one of the most prevalent necessities for stakeholders in the grain, grain processing, and grain-based food and feed industry. Because these toxic compounds can grow on numerous food ingredients, either before or after harvest and during storage, there are countless opportunities for mycotoxin contamination throughout the food growing and production stages. In fact, studies show that more than 68% of grains test positive for molds, which can create serious health issues for both humans and animals. Because of the dangers of mycotoxin contamination, it is imperative that stakeholders have highly sensitive testing systems for accurate analysis of mycotoxins at all phases.

When stakeholders are testing a small number of commodities for only a few mycotoxins and contamination incidence is low, they can easily turn to lateral flow test strips for testing needs. Lateral flow test strips are relatively inexpensive, simple to use, and accurate for testing at required levels. However, when mycotoxin incidence is high or when a user needs to test multiple types of commodities for many different mycotoxins— perhaps even in complex matrices such as finished feeds or pet foods— scaling up lateral flow testing may not be the best option. Instead, stakeholders should consider automated, high-throughput ELISA testing for fast, accurate, and cost-effective results.

So, how do you know when to make the move to ELISA testing?

When You’re a Large Grain Processing Plant with Years of Outbreaks

Large grain processing plants may be more likely to come across mycotoxin outbreaks due to the sheer amount of grain they’re testing on a daily basis. When you’re dealing with large volumes of contamination, speed and accuracy are an absolute necessity. Finding testing solutions that enable you to automate as many steps as possible can cut down on human error and free up time for testing professionals to work on additional tasks.

During years of high mycotoxin levels, testing requirements ramp up quickly and dramatically. These automated and simplified solutions help large processors meet their increasing needs while providing the flexibility to scale up or down as the demand fluctuates.

When You’re a Corporate Lab That Serves as a Hub for Testing

Corporate or regional labs that support mycotoxin testing for multiple plants face specific challenges. If the plants are in different regions, even the same commodity may require testing for different mycotoxins. The lab may support different types of traders or processors as well, so the base-matrix may vary. The new automated ELISA solutions provide the flexibility to address each incoming sample separately and distinctly, be it corn for aflatoxin or wheat for deoxynivalenol.

When You’re a Corporate Lab That Tests Complex Matrices

Testing complex matrices, such as pet foods, compound feeds, or other finished products, comes with its own set of challenges. Mycotoxins can be found in items such as cereals, animal feed, or pet food, but the addition of spices or an unknown composition (as in the case of animal feed) can make analysis extremely challenging. Previously, testing options for complex matrices were extremely limited or required certain sacrifices around convenience or speed, but technology is ever changing, and testing technology developers are continuing to develop new, automated options for these types of challenges.

Some new testing options on the market enable labs to test for specific mycotoxins within these complex matrices—some by using just a single sample, which can greatly increase testing throughput and save time. Hands-free sample dilution and distribution can help corporate labs reduce cross-contamination, and valuable integrations with software solutions can optimize result recording and analysis.

When You’re a Contract Lab with Samples That Change Day to Day

As a contract lab, the samples you’re testing can change daily. You may be asked to test grains or grain-based ingredients for a single mycotoxin or multiple mycotoxins, you may need to run tests on complex matrices, or you may deal with large disparities in testing volume. Because requests may change in an instant, contract labs need versatile testing options that can handle a variety of needs.

ELISA testing is comparable to other testing methods, but it comes with a few key advantages. It’s high precision, and handling the tests is simple and requires less training than other options. ELISA testing also has strong standardization potential, meaning that testers can cut down on the number of steps to get to results. One of the most important advantages of ELISA testing is the ability to obtain quick and accurate results, which are amplified when using high throughput options for large quantities of samples.

The Bottom Line

Technology around mycotoxin testing is always evolving, so it’s imperative to stay up to date on the latest options that best suit your needs. For those with special use circumstances or specific needs, finding a service provider that can explain all the best options can make a world of difference. Make sure you’re considering all possible options, and look for solutions that can make your testing processes even easier. Making the leap to a new system may not only save you time and money, but may also improve the health and well-being of consumers and livestock around the world.

Shadow is food market manager-grain at PerkinElmer. Reach him at wes.shadow@perkinelmer.com

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