Occurrence of Patulin in Organic, Conventional, and Handcrafted Apple Juices Marketed in Belgium

Abstract

The aim of this research was to compare the occurrence of patulin in a large group of organic, conventional, and handcrafted apple juices marketed in Belgium. An analytical procedure based on high-performance liquid chromatography with UV detection was validated and used to analyze 177 apple juice samples: 65 organic, 90 conventional, and 22 handcrafted. Patulin was detected in 22 samples (12%), and quantification was possible in 10 (6%) of these samples. The patulin content was higher than the European legal limit of 50 microg/liter in two samples of organic apple juice. Although, the incidence of patulin in organic (12%), conventional (13%), and handcrafted (10%) apple juices was not significantly different (P = 0.863), the mean concentration of patulin in contaminated samples was significantly higher in organic (43.1 microg/liter) than in conventional (10.2 microg/liter) (P = 0.02) and handcrafted (10.5 microg/liter) (P = 0.037) apple juice. The highest patulin concentrations were found in the most expensive apple juices because of the higher price of organic apple juice. This relation was not observed when only conventional apple juices were analyzed.

Chemical safety of conventionally and organically produced foodstuffs: A tentative comparison under Belgian conditions

“…In addition, the number of organic juices (four) included in this study was too low to make valid comparisons. In contrast, in another study carried out in Belgium on 22 organic and 36 conventional apple juices, Baert, Kasase, De Meulenaer, and Huyghebaert (2003) reported that, whilst all samples were under the legal limit of 50 lg/l, the organic juices contained significantly higher amounts of patulin (mean = 33.4 lg/l in organic versus 8.1 lg/l in conventional). However, the latter results were not analysed with a focus on the industrial and handicraft character that could have led to an even more important difference assuming that the careful elimination of rotten fruits is the key factor controlling apple juice contamination by patulin.…”

“…There are reports about studies carried out in Europe (France, Italy) mentioning that organic apple juices contain more patulin than the conventional products (Beretta, Gaiaschi, Galli, & Restani, 2000). However, it seems that the real problem lies more in the management of rotten fruits than in the intrinsic mode of production characterizing organic agriculture.…”

Mycotoxin Contamination of Beverages: Occurrence of Patulin in Apple Juice and Ochratoxin A in Coffee, Beer and Wine and Their Control Methods

“…Patulin has been identified in apples and its products from various countries around the world, such as Canada [33], Chile [50], England [33,51], Finland [52], France [33,53,54], Spain [55][56][57], New Zealand [58], Netherlands [59], Sweden [60], USA [33,61,62], Turkey [63][64][65], Australia [66,67], Iran [68,69], Saudi Arabia [70], Argentina [71], Brazil [72][73][74][75][76], Japan [77], Italy [78][79][80], India [81], Austria [82], Belgium [83,84], Greece [85] and other countries, as presented in Table 1. …”

Penicillium expansum versus antagonist yeasts and patulin degradation in vitro

“…Recently, "The Guidance Document of FDA Components and Industry on Apple Juice and Apple Juice Products" recommended that level of patulin in fruit juice and fruit products should be lower than 50 µg/L (Richard et al, 2003), and the European Commission established 25 µg/kg as maximum level for patulin in solid apple products, including apple compote and puree and 10 µg/kg in apple products intended for the infants and young children (European Commission, 2003;Boonzaaijer et al, 2005). The World Health Organization (WHO) altered the limit of patulin ingestion from 7.0 to 0.4 µg/kg bw/day (Bolger, 2002;Baert et al, 2004). Burda (1992) found patulin levels between 51 and 1130 µg/L and Gokmen and Acar (1998) reported the presence of patulin in 215 samples ranging from 7 to 376 µg/L.…”