134 | Deadly Bongkrekic Acid Poisoining | UK Meat Scandal, 1 year on |

Plus, new allergen recommendations and insights into hallucinogenic spinach outbreaks

• A Rare, Deadly Food-borne Illness Strikes Diners;

• Learnings from the UK meat scandal (one year on);

• Tropane alkaloid poisoning from leafy greens - new insights;

• Food Safety News and Resources;

• Job Done! WHO/FAO Food Allergen Risk Assessments Completed;

• Food fraud news, emerging issues and recent incidents

Cover image: Street food in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, used under licence

🎧 Listen 🎧

Hello food champions!

Welcome to another week in food fraud and food safety with The Rotten Apple.

My mission is to keep you up to date without overloading your inbox. So this week is devoted to adding new information to concepts and incidents I’ve covered in the past, including updates on the fall-out from the UK meat scandal which was exposed one year ago, plus new insights into emerging food safety risks from hallucinogenic weeds in leafy greens.

Also: the WHO/FAO allergen expert committee has made its final recommendations (I read the reports so you don’t have to). Plus breaking news from a very rare food poisoning incident which has caused critical illnesses and deaths in Taiwan.

As always, this week’s issue has food fraud news for paying subscribers including cross-border fakery in wheat and rapeseed oil, good news (sort of) for honey fraud in the USA, fertiliser frauds, surimi, cocoa, chicken, drug cartels, cumin, wine and confectionery.

Enjoy your week,

Karen

P.S. Shoutout and huge thank you to 👏👏 Maria and her colleagues 👏👏 for their group subscription – did you know you can get 35% off if you sign up as a group?  That’s a huge saving.

“This newsletter is a great avenue for keeping up to date with issues and trends relating to food safety.” Caroline (Dairy Industry, Australia)

Bongkrekic Acid Poisoning: A Rare, Deadly Food-borne Illness Strikes Diners

This bacterial toxin is odourless, tasteless and heat-stable (yeeouch!)

In Issue 61 I wrote about a food pathogen you've probably never heard of, Burkholderia cocovenenans, or more properly, Burkholderia gladioli pv. cocovenenans, (in this context pv means a pathovar, a pathogenic variant (“strain”) of the species), formerly known as Pseudomonas cocovenenans.

Reminder: While there are hundreds of thousands of species of bacteria currently known to science, there are fewer than 250 bacterial species that cause foodborne illness. 

B. cocovenenans is one of the rare ones. When it grows in food, this bacteria can produce the bacterial toxin bonkrekic acid, which causes abdominal pain, diarrhoea, vomiting, weakness, palpitations and death.   Outbreaks have mortality rates of about 50%.  That is, half the people who have eaten contaminated foods have died.

(Not) Fun Fact

Bongkrekic acid is both a food poisoning toxin and a respiratory toxin.

Coconut and corn-based fermented products and rice noodles have been implicated in outbreaks in Indonesia, China and Mozambique, but such outbreaks are rare. And relatively new. The earliest case I could find in the literature was in 2015 (Peng, et. al. (2021)).

Earlier this month, B. cocovenenans was linked to a new outbreak, the first bongkrekic acid poisoning event in Taiwan. Thirty-four people were hospitalised, with multiple patients requiring intensive care, and two people died.

All patients had dined at a Malaysian restaurant and the food source is thought to be flat rice noodles in char kway teow. 

The outbreak has been linked to char kway teow, a Malaysian noodle dish. Image used under licence.

In the wake of the event, Taiwanese authorities stressed that local rice supplies are safe and said the pathogenic strain of B. cocovenenans had not entered the local domestic agricultural chain. Some counties in Taiwan banned the sale of flat rice noodles after the incident.

While the bacteria is generally believed most likely to produce toxin in fermenting coconut or corn-based foods, due to their specific fatty acid profiles, an outbreak in China which caused five deaths in 2018 was linked to commercially produced rice noodles, which were not fermented or noticeably spoiled (Li et. al. (2019)).

Takeaways for food professionals

The main ‘parent’ species of the bacterial species, B. gladioli is found throughout the world and is considered to be environmentally ubiquitous.  It has been isolated from corn, rice, onions, palm fruits, soil and water.  The pathogenic strain, B. cocovenenans, is also ubiquitous in plants and soil and has been isolated from both developing and developed nations including the United States, although no food-borne outbreaks have occurred there.

High-risk foods are those that contain certain fatty acids that promote toxin formation, including coconut and corn.  Fermented coconut tempe (Bongkrek), is high risk and its sale is banned in Indonesia. The toxin is produced at temperatures of 22 – 30 degrees Celsius and in foods of a neutral pH.

Control methods include the careful control of fermentations, keeping pH low during fermentation and storing high-risk foods in the refrigerator.

In short: 🍏 A rare pathogenic bacterium, Burkholderia gladioli pv. cocovenenans has caused serious illnesses and deaths among Taiwanese diners via the heat-stable and highly toxic bacterial toxin bongkrekic acid, thought to have been present in flat rice noodles 🍏 Food poisoning from bongkrekic acid is rare 🍏 Fermented coconut and fermented corn foods are most often associated with bongkrekic acid poisoning 🍏

Information for consumers: Bongkrekic Acid: Safety of Fermented Corn and Coconut Products | Singapore Food Safety Agency

Sources:

Peng, Z., Dottorini, T., Hu, Y., Li, M., Yan, S., Fanning, S., Baker, M., Xu, J. and Li, F. (2021). Comparative Genomic Analysis of the Foodborne Pathogen Burkholderia gladioli pv. cocovenenans Harboring a Bongkrekic Acid Biosynthesis Gene Cluster. Frontiers in microbiology, [online] 12. doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2021.628538.

‌‌VnExpress (n.d.). Bongkrekic acid suspected behind death of diners at Malaysian restaurant in Taiwan - VnExpress International. [online] VnExpress International – Latest news, business, travel and analysis from Vietnam. Available at: https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/bongkrekic-acid-suspected-behind-death-of-diners-at-malaysian-restaurant-in-taiwan-4731907.html [Accessed 15 Apr. 2024].

Li, J., Zhou, L., Long, C., Fang, L., Chen, Q., Chen, Q., Liang, J., Yang, Y., Zhu, H., Chen, Z., Gao, S., Li, Z., Li, Q., Huang, Q. and Zhang, Y. (2019). An Investigation of Bongkrekic Acid Poisoning Caused by Consumption of a Nonfermented Rice Noodle Product without Noticeable Signs of Spoilage. Journal of Food Protection, [online] 82(10), pp.1650–1654. doi: https://doi.org/10.4315/0362-028X.JFP-19-121.

Anwar, M., Kasper, A., Steck, A.R. and Schier, J.G. (2017). Bongkrekic Acid—a Review of a Lesser-Known Mitochondrial Toxin. Journal of Medical Toxicology, 13(2), pp.173–179. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13181-016-0577-1.

🍏 Issue 61 | Burkholderia cocovenenans – a food pathogen you might not have heard of 🍏

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Learnings from the UK meat scandal (one year on)

Large-scale country of origin fraud was uncovered in 2023. What’s changed?

In April 2023, reports of large scale fraud in the UK meat industry began to surface, with claims that country of origin information was being falsified on many meat products.

Here’s what happened:

• A media outlet alleged that a UK meat processor was misrepresenting foreign-sourced pork as British and selling it in “huge quantities”, up to tens of thousands of tonnes per week. They also reported that former employees say they were told to mix rotting pork with fresh meat for processing and wash hams that were spoiled so they could be sold. The processor was not named (03/04/2023).

• The same media outlet later said that the same processor had been accused of falsifying ‘paperwork’ for Listeria and E.coli as part of its food safety violations (14/04/2023).

• It was alleged that the business had been “audited quite a number of times” without any major issues being uncovered (source) (17/04/2023).

• A senior executive of the UK FSA said that falling numbers of food hygiene officers – the people who enforce food safety laws in the UK – are a concern.  There are an estimated 1,360 local authority food hygiene officers in the UK, and at least 610,000 food businesses (source) (17/04/2023).

Where are we now?

The main meat processor accused of the “industrial scale” fraud still cannot be named for legal reasons, but has been investigated and is likely to be prosecuted soon.

‌Insiders received death threats for speaking out and warned “It’s way bigger than just this one company”, alleging that business customers who purchased meat from a number of suppliers were being “duped”.

Two other meat processors were investigated and subjected to enforcement actions including unannounced inspections, seizures of products, fines and forced shutdowns.

The head of the United Kingdom’s National Food Crime Unit (NFCU), Andrew Quinn told Farmer’s Weekly earlier this month that his organisation is focusing more on prevention since the fraud was uncovered. “We made a deliberate shift in our focus to look more at prevention, realising we’re just not big enough to investigate and prosecute every single thing that’s going across our doors and it’s far better to prevent something happening than try to investigate it afterwards.”

The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) published a set of proposals designed to strengthen the country’s response to food crime in response to the scandal. These included:

• A food fraud hotline telephone number, which was launched in October 2023;

• Programs to encourage food fraud whistleblowing from within the food industry;

• Strengthening of information sharing arrangements between third-party (private) auditors and the FSA;

• Improvements to food fraud alerting systems to warn food businesses of concerns.

The hotline is for England, Wales and Northern Ireland:  Food Crime Confidential 0800 028 11 80.

Training for Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) in how to spot fraud has been called for.

Are things better?

I’d say ‘yes’. Awareness of food fraud risks has grown in the meat sector in the United Kingdom, since news of the scandal broke, with ‘good’ actors working together to strengthen the industry. Purchasers of meat have been made aware of vulnerabilities and are therefore better able to mitigate fraud risks.

The food fraud hotline number is receiving calls with pertinent information, and the number of calls is growing.

I’m looking forward to the meat processor at the centre of the scandal being hauled before the courts to answer for their actions, which damaged the British meat brand and put the lives of consumers at risk.

Read more: Farmers Weekly's meat scandal exposé: One year on - Farmers Weekly (fwi.co.uk)

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Tropane alkaloid poisoning from leafy greens - new insights

Italian researchers have examined a series of food poisoning events from tropane alkaloid-containing plants accidentally consumed with spinach and other leafy greens in 2022. 

We discussed tropane alkaloid poisoning events in Issue 69 | Weirdest Food Safety Moments of 2022, Issue 70 | Update: Toxic plant confirmed in hallucinogenic spinach and Issue 99 | How (exactly) Did Toxic Weed Get into Baby Spinach?

The Italian researchers described the circumstances around each event, confirmed the species of contaminant plant(s) and shared unexpected challenges with the visual identification of foreign plant matter in leafy greens.

Here’s what they found:

• The contaminants in each event were most likely plants of the species of Datura, which are invasive weeds that have a similar appearance to leafy vegetables including young spinach and borage.

• All four events occurred in October 2022 and affected people from different regions of Italy.  In each event, samples of food residues from the meals or remaining spinach from the package used for the meal were analysed and each was found to contain one or both of the tropane alkaloids atropine and scopolamine.

• Very high levels of tropane alkaloids (up to ten thousand times higher than the maximum limits for herbal infusions) were found in some of the samples.

• Interestingly, botanical experts could not find distinct Datura leaves in any of the samples, leading the authors to suggest that small pieces of the leaves were present as impurities.

• The events:

  • Event 1:  Eight people were hospitalised.  Spinach was implicated.

  • Event 2: Two people were reported ill.  Boiled spinach had been eaten, and leftovers were tested.  Authorities seized the remainder of the lot of spinach (100 baskets).

  • Event 3: Two people were hospitalised.  Spinach-stuffed puff pastry rolls were the suspected source.

  • Event 4: One person was reported ill after eating boiled spinach.

• The authors noted that a 2021 survey of ordinary spinach products discovered atropine and scopolamine in 24% of products tested, although the concentrations were low compared to those that caused the four events in 2022.  Likewise, another study of leafy vegetable samples found atropine in 17% of samples, again, at lower levels.

• Other leafy green-related tropane alkaloid poisoning events mentioned in the paper include one in which a family in France experienced hallucinations and severe agitation after consuming spinach, seven people hospitalised in Greece with confusion and delirium after eating boiled herbs contaminated with Datura, and more than 100 people intoxicated after eating contaminated deep-frozen spinach puree.

Takeaways for food professionals

Tropane alkaloids are perhaps more common than previously suspected in leafy vegetables, with surveys finding many samples to contain low levels of atropine and scopolamine. Samples from known outbreaks contained very high levels of tropane alkaloids (up to ten thousand times higher than the maximum limits for herbal infusions).

Controls for tropane alkaloid hazards are required for processed spinach as well as fresh spinach. Boiled spinach, frozen spinach and processed products containing spinach puree were linked to the illnesses in 2022.

Visual inspection of leafy greens during harvesting, packing or subsequent processing may not be an effective control method for tropane alkaloid hazards: pieces of the contaminant plant(s) were not able to be seen with the naked eye in samples that were linked to the Italian illnesses.

Source:

Caprai, E., Prizio, I., Peloso, M., Minkoumba Sonfack, G., Bonan, S., Benini, N., Ghidini, S., Varrà, M.O., Zanardi, E., Lanza, G.T. and Fedrizzi, G. (2024). Case reports of tropane alkaloid contamination in spinach from Italy and its potential implications for consumer health. Food Control, [online] 160, p.110334. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodcont.2024.110334 .

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Food Safety News and Resources

Our news and resources section has not-boring food safety news plus links to free webinars and guidance documents: no ads, no sponsored content, only resources that I believe will be genuinely helpful for you.

This week includes: soft drink (soda) recalled because it contains undeclared sugar 🤔. More ground cinnamon recalled for lead.

Click the preview below to access it.

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Job Done! WHO/FAO Food Allergen Risk Assessments Completed

Valuable guidance on allergens of importance, allergen ‘safety’ thresholds, labelling rules and exempt ingredients has been published

Since 2020, the FAO/WHO expert committee on risk assessment of food allergens have been exploring the thresholds for major human food allergens, choosing analytical methods and providing guidance on precautionary labelling and labelling-exempt foods.  Their work is now done, with the final reports published in February 2024.

The reports provide guidance for industry and may be used to inform updates to the Codex model food code for labelling, as described in Codex Standard 1-985 General Standard for the Labelling of Packaged Foods.

I’ve previously reported on the work of the committee in Issue 3 and Issue 71.

As for the committee, I have to say I’m impressed with both the speed of their work and the practical, focused nature of their recommendations.

Impressive outcomes. Image: FAO/Kang Zhou

The committee’s first three reports described the creation of a list of ‘priority’ food allergens; establishment of ‘safety’ thresholds for the priority allergens; and creation of guidance for precautionary allergen labelling (PAL) systems. Details can be found in Issue 71 of The Rotten Apple.

In the final two reports, they establish a method for granting labelling exemptions for certain foods and provide ‘threshold levels’ for a number of allergens that weren’t covered in the earlier reports.

Reminder: the ‘safety’ thresholds were calculated using a method based on a benchmark dose plus probabilistic hazard assessment instead of using ‘analytical-based’ or ‘no observed adverse effect level’ methods to determine safe exposure doses. The thresholds are called recommended reference doses (RfDs), and are expressed as milligrams (mg) of total protein from the allergenic source.

Threshold levels for allergens, from FAO/WHO reports Part 2 and Part 5. Note: These RfDs are not intended to be used for making a claim that a food is free from specified allergens. 

Labelling-exempt foods are discussed in report Part 4. Exempt foods are listed with suggested values for exposure estimates for various different allergens within different ingredients and foods. 

The process for establishing exemptions is described in detail and includes a consideration of the intended use of the ingredient or food, the amount of protein in the ingredient or food and consumption values for intended food products.

The committee noted that where certain foods and ingredients already had allergen labelling exemptions, such as in the European Union, Australia and New Zealand, there appears to be a safe history of consumption and that the resulting levels of exposure were very low, approximately one-thirtieth of the RfD in worst case scenarios.

Ingredients and foods listed in the Table A3.1 of Report 4

Reference documents

Meeting reports: Risk Assessment of Food Allergens, Food And Agriculture Organization of The United Nations, World Health Organization Rome, 2024

Part 1 Priority food allergens

Part 2 Threshold for the priority food allergens

Part 3 Precautionary labelling

Part 4 Exemptions

Part 5 Threshold for other food allergens

Further reading

For an excellent summary of the work, see this blog post by expert committee member, Bert Pöpping.

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Below for paying subscribers: Food fraud news, horizon scanning and incident reports

📌 Food Fraud News 📌

In this week’s food fraud news:

📌 Honey fraud in the USA;
📌 Cocoa powder, surimi authenticity tests;
📌 Dairy foods (USA) long-term vulnerability;
📌 Drug cartels branch into food supply chains, cumin adulteration, confectionery seizures, wheat trading and more.