Grain Mycotoxin Testing
Hello All,
I am a QA Manager at a grain elevator, handling both food and feed grade corn and soybeans.
I'm wondering if anyone has and can share an example of a mycotoxin testing SOP.
Mycotoxins are one of the hazards in grain that I believe will require a prevent control in a FSMA food safety plan,
and outside of testing every load of grain for mycotoxin contamination I am struggling to come up with a comprehensive plan.
Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
HI Gary,
In my experience, mycotoxin issues tend to arise due to weather / climatic conditions, (eg a particularly damp season), so I would think it would be reasonable to test grain from a each geographical area once or twice per harvest.
I'm not sure how wide your supply base is, but perhaps you could split your suppliers by county and test 2 loads per county per season?
I'd be interested to see what others have to say...
Tom
I have no idea about FDA / FSMA requirements but, as per previous post, general sampling procedures tend to rely on some idea of relevant known historical problems.
If your frequency/probability of mycotoxin occurrence is totally unknown, the usual expectation is an initially "conservative" procedure. However my guess is that the "best practice" for yr US industry is already documented (somewhere) so hopefully will be forthcoming.