A risk assessment of patulin in home-made apple must

Abstract: Patulin is a mycotoxin produced by several filamentous fungi, which has been the object of a number of surveys in recent decades, due to its frequent occurrence in apple products made from decayed fruit. The legislated limit in apple products is 50 µg/kg and a provisional maximum tolerable daily intake (PMTDI) of 0.4 μg/kg bodyweight/day has been set. It is of concern that the risk reducing practices adopted in large scale commercial apple juice production do not apply to the Swedish home producers of apple must. Potentially risky practices include incorrect storage conditions and not discarding bad apples. Home producers are presumed to consume large volumes and are thereby exposed to potential patulin. This study presents a chemical risk assessment of patulin in home-made apple must, including a minor study on the routines of eight Swedish apple must processors. Previous studies have focused on commercial and clear juice products, but there is no risk assessment available regarding small scale produced apple must. It became apparent that not all processors are considered as food sale operations, but offer instead a service, which may put them outside current food inspection regimes and thus entail less responsibility for the final product. Based on concentrations of patulin found in a previous study of raw cloudy apple juice, made from apples with 0% or 30% rot, intake for average and high consumers were estimated to be 0.009-2.04 μg/kg/bw/day and 0.003-0.65 μg/kg/bw/day among 4-year olds and adults, respectively. However, the simulated exposure calculations were based on patulin concentrations that may not fully represent the situation in Sweden. Sources of uncertainty in the exposure assessment are discussed. The main gaps in knowledge to perform a more accurate risk assessment for patulin in Swedish home-made apple juice include: concentrations of patulin in similar products; consumption data on home-made apple must; and patulin occurrence in Swedish apple cultivars. From the overview of apple must production gained during this study, suggested measures to reduce patulin risk in this product are to avoid storage of bruised and ground harvested fruit and remove rotten fruit and parts thereof before processing.