Determination of the level of benzo[a]pyrene in fatty foods and food supplements

Abstract

A routine method was developed for the quantification of benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) in edible oils and food supplements. BaP is often taken as an indicator of the presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The method consists of on-line liquid chromatography clean-up followed by injection to an HPLC system with fluorescence detection. The method has good performance characteristics and gave good results in proficiency tests. From 2002 to 2004, about 1350 samples of oils and food supplements were analysed using this method to test the level of BaP. About 20% of the edible oils contained more than 1.2 µg kg⁻¹ BaP (which is the limit applied by the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority until 1 April 2005, and includes measurement uncertainty). In the case of food supplements, more then 30% contained too high levels of BaP, ranging from 1.2 to 135 µg kg⁻¹.

Keywords:

• Benzo[a]pyrene (BaP)
• routine liquid chromatography method
• fluorescence detection
• validation
• quantification
• oils
• food supplements

Acknowledgement

The study resulted from the realization that the levels of BaP were far in excess of those that are acceptable. It was necessary to inform and inspect a very large number of companies. The authors thank the team who managed this project, being organizationally very complicated. A special thanks is due to the chemistry laboratory of VWA — Region South, which performed all the analyses; and to the inspectors of the VWA, who visited the companies to gather all samples. The authors also thank the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM, the Netherlands), who carried out analysis using other methods, which enabled us to confirm the results.