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Significant increase in microbiological hazards in 2017

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Overview of the EWS notifications 2017. GMP+ International has created an overview of the EWS notifications received in 2017. We consider this overview a learning opportunity for all companies in the feed chain.

More detailed information, (product, contaminant, country, cause) per EWS case is included in an overview. The overview is available on our website (after logging in).

An analysis of the EWS notifications in 2017, resulted in the following interesting conclusion:

  1. Feed materials and microbiological hazards dominate 

    82% of the notifications concerned feed materials:
  • the number of notifications about microbiological hazards (mainly Salmonella and Enterobacteriaceae) more than doubled: from 38 notifications in 2016 to 91 notifications in 2017. The most issues with Salmonella in feed materials occurred in soy bean meal (27 notifications) and rapeseed meal (13 notifications). The most issues with Enterobacteriaceae in feed materials occurred in whey (14 notifications). 
  1. Substantial fewer pesticides and mycotoxins notifications
  • The number of notifications about pesticides/insecticides and mycotoxins decreased with 50%.

 

Causes of contamination

In almost half of the notifications of unsafe feed (47%), the cause of the contamination is known:

  • In 69 notifications, the cause was in the immediate control of the feed company (category ‘Processing – inside feed company’*).
  • 29 notifications had a natural cause;
  • In 7 notifications, human error was the cause;
  • In 6 notifications, the cause was beyond the immediate control of the feed company (category ‘Processing – outside feed company’**)

In the other notifications (53%) the cause of the contamination was not found.

Reasons being:

  • Investigation did not reveal a cause;
  • The feed turned out to be safe;
  • Contamination was not confirmed by the counter analysis;
  • The product limit was not exceeded;
  • There was no product limit.

* This concerns notifications in which, somewhere in the production process, the contamination has arisen. For example during cultivation, processing or during transport and storage of the relevant product;

**This can be in the sampling of the relevant product or analysis of the sample.