In October 2024, there were 541 notifications on the RASFF Portal including 487 foods, 42 animal feeds and 12 food contact material notifications. this is the first time the EU has issued multiple warnings.

In food, fruits and vegetables are still the products that account for the most cases (113 notifications), followed by nuts, nut products and seeds (48 notifications) and poultry meat and poultry meat products (44 notifications).

There are highlight alerts reported this month:

1. Microbiology:

• There are 111 cases alerted from EU members relevant to pathogens.  Most highlight is the detection of Salmonella (74 alerts) in meat products originating from many sources, following in nut and nut products, herb and spices, fruit and vegetables, milk and egg Detection Listeria monocytogenes in fish and fish products (7 alerts); E. coli in meat, bivalve molluscs, fruits and milk products (7 alerts). Salmonella is also factor we need to concern
• One point we should notice is detected Anisakis spp in fish and fish products from Netherlands and Norway.   

2. Pesticides: 87 warning cases in this month that highlight points in the following:

• The banned active substances such as chlorpyrifos, phosmet, dimethoate, thiamethoxam, chlorfenapyr, tricyclazole, clothianidin, dinotefuran, fipronil, hexaconazole, isoprothiolane, thifluzamide are detected in fruit and vegetable products, herbs and spices, tea, and nuts, rice. Especially, chlorpyrifos has been banned in the EU since 2020, but to date there have been many alerts of violations of this substance.
• The frequency of residues of acetamiprid, imidacloprid, carbendazim, Azoxystrobin exceeding the MRL is quite frequent in the vegetable and fruit, spices group.

3. Chemical contaminant: there is 125 warning cases in this month, details as following:

• Aflatoxin (59 cases) exceeds MRL the threshold in nuts and nut products quite frequently, account for half on all case, originating almost from the Egypt, the United States.
• Ochratoxin A (20 cases) exceeds MRL in some dried fruit products, cereal products almost from Turkey.
• Heavy metal: Cadmium exceeds MRL in fruits and vegetables, cereals; Exceeding As, Hg in fish and fish products, lead in dietetic foods, food supplements and fortified foods.
• The high exceeded 3-monochlor-1,2-propanediol (3-MCPD), glycidyl esters originating from Bulgaria, Bangladesh and India.
• Exceeding of Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in herb and spices from China.
• High level Acrylamide in biscuits from Romania and Belgium.
• Detection of mineral oil (MOAH) fried garlic from Thailand, MOAH in rice protein from Belgium and (MOSH/MOAH) in rice from Pakistan.
• Presence of histamine above the limits in fresh yellowfin tuna from Sri Lanka and in anchovies in oil from Albania.

4. Food additive: there are some highlight notices

• Presence unauthorized colour E 110 - Sunset Yellow FCF in biscuit sticks from Thailand; E 171 - titanium dioxide, E 127 - erythrosine in food supplement; E 102 – tartrazine use in noodles from Philippines.
• Preservatives including E 200, E 210, E 211, E 220, E 223 are too high in some food.

5. Allergies:

Lack of declaration of allergies egg, gluten, tree nuts, milk, wheat, fish and crustaceans, soya on food labels

6. Other alerts:

• In this month, there is 10 cases alert about foreign bodies such as plastic pieces, metal, glass pieces, steel-cut in food proucts.
• 19 cases relevant to novel food unauthorized use in EU such as Butterfly pea flowers (Clitoria ternatea), cannabidiol (CBD), Tongkat ali,…
• There are some cases of lack of certificate for certain products must comply with regulation EU 1793/2019.

7. Vietnam: in October, Vietnam received warnings from EU as details are in the table below: