Aflatoxins M1

Reduce your risk, costs and have confidence in the quality of your supplier’s products and your compliance with EU legislation. Fera can analyse dairy based samples to measure levels of Aflatoxins M1. The methods used are fully compliant with EU contaminants legislation to allow you to assess your compliance with regulatory limits in place.

National Reference Laboratory - Mycotoxins and Plant Toxins

Fera is the UK National Reference Laboratory for Mycotoxins and Plant Toxins in Food and Feed, if you would like to know more about the relevant regulations, please follow the link below:

The method used is fully accredited to ISO17025 for liquid milk, powdered milk, powdered infant formula and ready to drink infant formula and is based on an immunoaffinity column clean-up with HPLC-fluorescence detection. Matrix optimised extraction protocols coupled with highly specific clean-up protocols allow the analysis to respond optimally with challenging matrices so we can be sure the results produced are fit for purpose, accurate and precise. Non accredited analysis can also be undertaken for the analysis of aflatoxin M1 in milk products such as cheese, butter, yogurt and cream using the same clean-up and detection techniques as in the accredited method.

Aflatoxins are a subset of mycotoxins, a group of naturally forming chemicals produced by a range of moulds, formed by fungi with Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus being the most common. Their presence within a range of foodstuffs and feed is important to control due to potentially harmful effects on consumers and/or livestock when consumed in significant quantities.

When lactating cattle and other animals ingest aflatoxins in contaminated feed, toxic metabolites can be formed and may be present in milk. These metabolites, aflatoxin M1, are relatively stable towards the pasteurizing process so it is important that final products are checked as well as the raw materials.