CONTAMINANTS OF FOOD - PRIORITIZATION SCHEME TO IDENTIFY MANUFACTUREDORGANIC-CHEMICALS AS POTENTIAL CONTAMINANTS OF FOOD

A scheme has been developed to rank 70 industrial organic chemicals in order of their priority for further study as potential contaminants o f food. Numerical scales were developed for the following seven key cr iteria concerning environmental issues, food and toxicity: Production volume Pattern of usage Possible fate in the environment Likelihood of chemical entering the food chain Mechanism of entry into the food cha in Persistence and accumulation in the food chain Toxicity. Each chemi cal was assigned a score for the above criteria, which were combined t o give an overall ranking for the chemicals. This scheme has been endo rsed by the MAFF Steering Group on Chemical Aspects of Food Surveillan ce. It will be used in the assessment of relative priorities for furth er non-statutory surveillance for these contaminants in the UK food su pply.