The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) manages a list of processing factors for (priority) pesticide residues in food. This list is used by the food industry and Dutch and foreign institutes for the calculation of dietary intake of certain pesticide residues.
LIST OF PROCESSING FACTORS TO EVALUATE PESTICIDE RESIDUES MEASURED IN THE NETHERLANDS
Last update: 11 June 2020
In order to come to a harmonized use of processing factors for the estimation of dietary intakes of pesticide residues found in enforcement and monitoring programs and by producers, a list of processing factors has been put together for priority substances as defined by the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) and the then Dutch Product Board for Horticulture (Productschap Tuinbouw) in 2011.
The list that is made available on this site has been endorsed as the current default in the Netherlands by the then Ministries of VWS (1) and EL&I (1) in December 2011. Adaptations of this list will first be discussed in the pesticide residue consultation group (2). Upon agreement in this group, the changes will be implemented in the list. It is therefore pivotal to always use the latest version from the Processing factors webpage on the RIVM website (there is a link further down below to download an Excel spreadsheet with the processing factors).
In 2019 the pesticide residue consultation group decided to use the PRIMo rev 3.1 model for dietary intake. The processing factors listed in the Dutch processing database were adapted to match with the commodities listed in the PRIMo rev 3.1 model. In 2020 this consultation group decided to add processing factors for dried commodities as these were not represented in the PRIMo rev 3.1 model.
Processing factors have been obtained in order of importance from the 2018 EFSA database, EFSA Journals and JMPR reports and evaluations. The overview of the processing factors is listed in an Excel spreadsheet on this site (20200611_Overview processing factors.xls (in zip-file)) and represents the situation of 11 June 2020. The rationale behind the current list of processing factors is presented in the documents “20200611_Rationale processing factors.pdf” and “20200611_Processing factors for dried commodities.pdf” on this site. No update has taken place since March 20, 2018.
(1) VWS: Public Health, Welfare and Sport; EL&I: Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation
(2) this group is formed by representatives from the Ministry of VWS, the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA), the Board for the Authorisation of Plant Protection Products and Biocides (Ctgb), the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) and the Fresh Produce Centre (Groente Fruit Huis).