IN Brief:
- Researchers analysed 2,479 mycotoxin-related RASFF notifications recorded between 2020 and 2024.
- Aflatoxins accounted for 84% of notifications, while nuts, nut products, and seeds were the largest affected product group.
- Products originating outside the EU represented more than 90% of cases, reinforcing risk-based controls around traded ingredients.
University of Córdoba researchers have analysed 2,479 mycotoxin-related notifications submitted through the European Union’s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed between 2020 and 2024, finding that aflatoxins accounted for the large majority of recorded cases.
The peer-reviewed study, published in Toxins on 4 September, examined notification type, risk classification, product category, country of origin, notifying country, and individual mycotoxins. Aflatoxins were involved in 2,076 notifications, equivalent to 84% of the dataset, while ochratoxins accounted for 361, or 15%.
Aflatoxin B1 appeared in 1,848 notifications. Nuts, nut products, and seeds were the largest affected product category, representing 54% of all mycotoxin notifications and 64% of those involving aflatoxins. Fruit and vegetables accounted for 23% of the overall dataset, followed by cereals and bakery products at 10%.
The origin data were similarly concentrated. Products from outside the EU accounted for more than 90% of the notifications examined, with Türkiye representing 24% and the United States 14%. India, Egypt, Iran, Argentina, and Pakistan were also prominent among the countries associated with recorded cases.
The figures do not show that the same proportion of imported food is contaminated. RASFF records regulatory non-compliances that have been detected and reported, so notification totals are influenced by trade volumes, sampling intensity, border-control activity, and surveillance practices. The researchers explicitly caution against using the counts as direct measures of contamination prevalence or population exposure.
That limitation still leaves the dataset useful for ingredient-risk management. The concentration of notifications around nuts, seeds, dried produce, and cereals identifies commodity groups where supplier approval, sampling plans, certificates of analysis, and incoming-material controls require particular attention. Production planning can also be affected when higher-risk ingredients are held pending laboratory results or border clearance.
Border rejections accounted for 68% of the mycotoxin notifications, followed by alerts at 16%, information notifications for attention at 13%, and information notifications for follow-up at 2%. Around 92% of the notifications from 2020 to 2024 were classified as presenting a serious risk, while 2,385 of the 2,479 cases concerned food intended for human consumption.
The pattern places much of the control burden before an ingredient reaches a processing line. Mycotoxin formation can be influenced by crop conditions, harvest handling, drying, transport, and storage, while the ability to identify affected lots depends on representative sampling and suitable analytical methods. Once a contaminated lot has been divided or incorporated into intermediate materials, the number of batches requiring investigation can rise quickly.
Traceability therefore determines how narrowly a business can contain a failure. Batch identities, supplier records, certificates, intake results, warehouse locations, and production-use records all need to align if affected stock is to be isolated without unnecessarily holding unaffected material. The more widely a lot has been distributed across recipes or sites, the greater the operational cost of reconstructing its use.
The study also recorded an increase in ochratoxin A notifications from 44 in 2020 to 117 in 2024. The authors caution that the change could reflect reporting frequency and improved detection as well as changes in contamination, with climate-related effects on fungal growth another possible influence. The analysis therefore does not attribute the increase to a single cause.
Across the longer 2012-2024 period, the researchers found no statistically significant long-term increase in annual mycotoxin notifications. Total RASFF notifications rose over the same period, while mycotoxins fell as a share of all notifications from around 15-16% in 2015-2018 to approximately 9-12% in 2023-2024.
The latest findings sit alongside recent EU scrutiny of aflatoxin controls on US peanuts, where stronger controls at origin have not removed the need for enhanced checks on specified groundnut products entering Europe. Both developments point towards persistent rather than uniformly worsening risk, with surveillance concentrated where commodity, origin, and alert history justify closer attention.
Supplier diversification does not remove the underlying biology. A processor buying nuts or cereals from several origins can reduce dependence on one source, but each supply route brings different growing conditions, testing regimes, documentation, and border requirements. Purchasing decisions therefore have to account for regulatory status and verification requirements alongside price and availability.
The RASFF analysis gives food businesses a broad evidence base for that risk-based approach without turning notification counts into a proxy for product safety. Aflatoxins remain the dominant mycotoxin issue in the system, imported products account for most recorded cases, and a relatively narrow set of commodity groups continues to generate the majority of notifications.
