This means a slight increase of 4% compared with 2017, when a total of 601 notifications were registered. By category, the number of RASFF notifications for edible nuts slightly increased by 5% compared with 2017; for peanuts for feed it rose by 127%. By contrast, notifications for dried fruits decreased by 12%. The presence of aflatoxins was the main reason for notifying nuts (88%) and peanuts for feed (100%), whereas Ochratoxin A was the main reason for notifying dried fruits (35%).
The most notified edible nuts were peanuts, with 191 notifications, followed by pistachios (104 not.) and hazelnuts (60 not.). By country of origin, the most frequently notified edible nuts were peanuts from Argentina (20%), pistachios from USA (10%) and peanuts from China (8%). Peanuts from Argentina were the most notified product/country (89 not.), tripling the notifications reached in 2017. On the other hand, the notifications for peanuts from China decreased by 58%. Almonds and pistachios from USA experienced an increase of approximately 325% and 39%, respectively.
As for dried fruits, dried figs (46 not.), dried grapes (42 not.) and dried apricots (35 not.) were the most notified. Dried figs, dried apricots and dried grapes from Turkey were the most notified, representing 29%, 27% and 26%, respectively, of the total dried fruit notifications. The number of notifications for dried grapes from Turkey increased from 12 in 2017 to 33 in 2018, whereas in the case of dried figs from Turkey, the number of notifications decreased from 68 to 37.
The data presented here have been extracted from the RASFF Portal.