The European Food Safety Authority Conducts Third Update to EU Pesticide Residue Processing Factor Database

1. Overview. It is well-known that food processing operations influence pesticide residue levels. The ratio of residue distribution between processed and unprocessed foods is called the processing factor. The processing factor is used not only to assess dietary exposure but also to evaluate whether processed foods placed on the market comply with the maximum residue levels for unprocessed agricultural products under European law. In 2018, the European Food Safety Authority published the first version of the EU Pesticide Residue Processing Factor Database. Since then, the database has been updated several times. Currently, the expanded version contains 2,838 studies, 19,384 individual processing factors, and 4,564 median processing factors, all of which have been evaluated according to the latest residue definition, used for monitoring and storage stability information, and comply with a set of quality standards applicable to all processing studies in the database. Processing factors were derived and their reliability was assessed;

2. During the most recent update process, the number of research reports and processing descriptions added to the database was notably fewer than in previous updates, indicating that the existing processing information in the database already has good coverage. In this work, not only was the database itself updated, but three supplementary documents were also updated;

3. In the representative processing techniques summary, the production of oat flour and soybean flour was added to the representative processing processes.