Assessment of the acrylamide intake of the Belgian population and the effect of mitigation strategies.

The acrylamide (AA) intake of the Belgian consumer was calculated based on AA monitoring data of the Belgian Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (FASFC) and consumption data of the Belgian food consumption survey coordinated by the Scientific Institute for Public Health (3214 participants of 15 years or older). The average AA exposure, calculated probabilistically, was 0.4 microg kg(-1) body weight (bw) day(-1) (P97.5 = 1.6 microg kg(-1) bw day(-1)), the main contributors to the average intake being chips (23%), coffee (19%), biscuits (13%), and bread (12%). Additionally, the impact of a number of AA mitigation scenarios was evaluated (German minimization concept, scenarios for mitigation from the literature, signal values), which is an important issue for public health as well as for policy-makers. Specific actions in cooperation with the food industry to reduce the AA content of foods seems to be a more efficient strategy than mere implementation of signal values. Considering that an important share of the AA intake is due to prepared meals, the catering industry as well as consumers need to be better informed on the various possibilities for keeping the AA content of meals as low as possible.

Quantitative risk assessment of Campylobacter spp. in poultry based meat preparations as one of the factors to support the development of risk-based microbiological criteria in Belgium.

The objective of this study was to do an exercise in risk assessment on Campylobacter spp. for poultry based meat preparations in Belgium. This risk assessment was undertaken on the demand of the competent national authorities as one of the supportive factors to define risk-based microbiological criteria. The quantitative risk assessment model follows a retail to table approach and is divided in different modules. The contamination of raw chicken meat products (CMPs) was represented by a normal distribution of the natural logarithm of the concentration of Campylobacter spp. (ln[Camp]) in raw CMPs based on data from surveillance programs in Belgium. To analyse the relative impact of reducing the risk of campylobacteriosis associated with a decrease in the Campylobacter contamination level in these types of food products, the model was run for different means and standard deviations of the normal distribution of the ln[Camp] in raw CMPs. The limitation in data for the local situation in Belgium and on this particular product and more precisely the semi-quantitative nature of concentration of Campylobacter spp. due to presence/absence testing, was identified as an important information gap. Also the knowledge on the dose-response relationship of Campylobacter spp. was limited, and therefore three different approaches of dose-response modelling were compared. Two approaches (1 and 2), derived from the same study, showed that the reduction of the mean of the distribution representing the ln[Camp] in raw CMPs is the best approach to reduce the risk of Campylobacter spp. in CMPs. However, for the simulated exposure and approach 3 it was observed that the reduction of the standard deviation is the most appropriate technique to lower the risk of campylobacteriosis. Since the dose-response models used in approach 1 and 2 are based on limited data and the reduction of the mean corresponds with a complete shift of the contamination level of raw CMPs, demanding high efforts from the poultry industry, it is proposed to lower the standard deviation of the concentration of Campylobacter spp. in raw CMPs. This proposal corresponds with the elimination of the products that are highly contaminated. Simulation showed that eating raw chicken meat products can give rise to exposures that are 10(10) times higher than when the product is heated, indicating that campaigns are important to inform consumers about the necessity of an appropriate heat treatment of these type of food products.