Monitoring of Chemical Residues in Food of Animal Origin in Israel, 2012-2017

Food of animal origin (FAO) is subject to exposure to chemical residues from medicines, pesticides, and contaminants either intentionally or from the environment. Countries monitor these residues in order to minimize human exposure from food. Israel has been monitoring residues in FAO since 1991. Chemicals are classified into two groups- forbidden substances, for which there is no permitted residue level, and permitted substances, to which a maximum residue level is determined based on a person`s average daily intake (ADI) of that food that potentially contains that residue. Foods that contain residues below the ADI are regarded as compliant samples.

In 2012, changes were made to the Israeli monitoring program to include more types of animals as well as FAO imported from other countries. In addition, the sampling plan was modified from the European Union (EU) model, which is based on production, to the Codex model, which is aimed to detect a noncompliant sample with 90% accuracy. Since Israel`s production of FAO is relatively small, the sampling program based on the EU model did not provide a statistically significant sample size. The Codex model provided a considerably larger sample size- from approximately 7555 tests to over 23,000 tests, which allowed a more appropriate risk assessment of human exposure to chemical residues.

In 2017, a retrospective analysis was performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the revised sampling plan and to create the national monitoring plan for the next three years. Analyzing the data obtained from the five-year monitoring plan allowed us to cater the subsequent year`s monitoring plan to individual compounds and FAO product. These changes resulted in a more risk-based and cost effective sampling plan.