Occurrence of ochratoxin a in raw ham muscles and in pork products from Northern Italy

Abstract

The occurrence of ochratoxin A (OTA) in different pork products was surveyed. Twenty-two samples of raw ham muscle were obtained from industrial plants for ham production and 84 samples of dry-cured ham (n=30), cooked ham (n=12), salami (n=12), coppa (n=18) and wurstel (n=12) were collected from retail outlets located in the Emilia region (northern Italy). After extraction and immunoaffinity clean-up steps, OTA was quantified using HPLC-fluorescence detection. The limits of detection and quantification (LOQ) for the method used were 0.01 and 0.03 μg/ kg, respectively. OTA was detected in 47% of the samples, but only 24% contained OTA above the LOQ. High levels of OTA were only found in some dry-cured ham samples: 5 (17%) exceeded 1.0 μg/kg, the limit set by the Italian Ministry of Health guideline and 2 (7%) exceeded 10 μg/kg; however, the median was only 0.02 μg/kg. The other pork products showed lower OTA contamination that was always below 0.30 μg/kg. The contribution of pork products to OTA intake in Italy appears to be negligible.