Occurrence and risk assessment of mycotoxins, acrylamide, and furan in Latvian beer

ABSTRACT

This work reports data on the occurrence of nine mycotoxins and two food processing contaminants – acrylamide and furan – in a total of 100 beers produced in Latvia. Mycotoxins were detected by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with time-of-flight mass spectrometry, acrylamide by HPLC coupled with quadrupole-Orbitrap mass spectrometry, and furan by headspace gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The most frequently occurring mycotoxins were HT-2 and deoxynivalenol (DON), which were detected in 52% and 51% of the analysed samples. The highest content was observed for DON, reaching the maximum of 248 µg kg⁻¹. Furan was ubiquitous, and 74% of the samples contained acrylamide. In terms of the estimated exposure, the biggest potential risk was identified for HT-2 representing more than 11% of tolerable weekly intake. The margin of exposure approach indicated the exposure to furan through beer as significant, this parameter being close to the critical limit.

KEYWORDS:

• Mycotoxins
• acrylamide
• furan
• Orbitrap
• TOF
• risk assessment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the National Research Program No. 7 “Agricultural Resources for Sustainable Production of Qualitative and Healthy Foods in Latvia” (AgroBioRes) [Project No. 4] “Sustainable use of local agricultural resources for qualitative and healthy food product development”.